By Jerry Azanduna
Ayorya (BE/R), Sept. 29, GNA – Dr. Angela Lusigi, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Ghana, has called for the socio-economic empowerment of women to become self-reliant.
She said if women become economically independent, it would position the country to push economic growth and facilitate accelerated national development.
“Women are bread-winners of the home, and it is prudent to empower them through the use of modern technologies to enable them to build on what they do”, Dr. Lusigi stated, when she addressed a durbar of women farmers and processors at Ayorya in the Kintampo South District of the Bono East Region.
The women are mostly engaged in local food processing, including groundnut oil and groundnut paste.
Dr. Lusigi indicated “women are developers, and we need to link them to modern technologies to enable them to improve on their productivity in business”, saying, “trends are changing around the globe, and we must put women on the modern scale of production”.
After inspecting a groundnuts oil and paste processing factory constructed by the UNDP for the women at Ayorya, Dr. Lusigi said she was optimistic that the beneficiaries would work hard to improve productivity and enhance their socio-economic lives.
The facility, inaugurated in June this year, has a total production capacity of 200 metric tons of groundnut paste and oil on a monthly basis.
According to Dr. Lusigi, the facility would benefit more than 300 women in the local communities and urged the farmers to produce more to feed the factory.
Madam Hannah Chiama, the President for the Ayorya Women Association, expressed gratitude to the UNDP for economically empowering the women in the area, saying the association had initiated a Village Savings and Loans programme to support themselves.
GNA