Plan International, a global organisation dedicated to advancing children’s rights and equality for girls is worried about lack of better job opportunities for women despite efforts to improve the situation over the years.

Solomon Tesfamariam, Country Director of Plan International who expressed the concern, said better education outcomes and economic growth have still not translated into better jobs for women and girls.

Speaking at the media launch of the “She Leads” Project in Accra, Mr. Tesfamariam said women’s labour force participation rate has stagnated and even declined in the last few years.

“She Leads” Project is a five-year project that seeks to increase the sustained influence of girls and young women in decision-making and the transformation of gender norms in formal and informal institutions with funding from the Dutch Government.

It is adopting socio-cultural, civil society and institutional domains to advocate for increased acceptance to girls and young women leadership and inclusion in decision-making processes at all levels.

It is being implemented by a consortium made up of Plan International Ghana, Defence for Children International, Africa Women’s Development and Communication Network and Terre des Hommes in the Netherlands.

For the past year, some selected districts in Greater Accra, Ashanti, Upper East, Upper West, Northern, and Central Regions have benefitted from the project through local civil society organisations.

The media launch which coincided with International Women’s Day was, therefore, to step up awareness creation of the project and also highlight the success stories so far.

Mr. Tesfamariam said the “She Leads” Project among other objectives, sought to promote enabling policy environment that increases entrepreneurs, access to finance and digital technologies among girls and young women.

The project also seeks to promote entrepreneurship as a catalyst for advancing women’s economic empowerment, he noted.

“If we strengthen women’s capabilities and access to resources, the prospect of leadership will be within the reach of many more women in Ghana,” he pointed out.

He said recognising the contributions of women and girls around the world for leading the charge on climate change adaption, mitigation, and responses to build a more sustainable future for all, is strongly connected to the campaign of Plan International.

Mr. Theophilous Ayugani, Policy Officer, Gender and Governance at the Dutch Embassy, said the Embassy believed that the inclusion of young women and girls was a pre-requisite for sustainable development.

He said the Netherlands Government considers gender as a key priority in its development interventions in Ghana, saying that it is a core policy of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Embassy, he said, is happy about the progress made so far after one year of implementation of the project and urged the consortium and its partners to do more to create a level playing field for girls and young women to strive.