The First Lady, Dr. (Mrs.) Ernestina Naadu Mills, says the issue of respect for and promotion and protection of women’s rights can only be achieved if all arms of government play their expected roles. According to her, the responsibility squarely lies with the entire government, from the Executive to the Judiciary and the Legislature, to ensure women’s rights, as enshrined in the various protocols and treaties, such as the Beijing Platform for Action and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) that the country had acceded to were fulfilled. Launching the African Women’s Decade programme organised by the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs in Accra Tuesday, the First Lady said: “No one sector can provide a comprehensive response.” The decade, which spans 2010 to 2020 and is on the theme: “Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment”, was declared at the 12th African Union (AU) Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2009. The commencement of the decade, which was launched at the continental level in Kenya in 2010, is on 10 thematic areas, with the aim of improving the status of women in Africa at the grass-roots level. The thematic areas that will be tackled across Africa at various country levels are: Fighting poverty and promoting the economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs; Agriculture and food security; Health, maternal mortality and HIV and AIDS; Education, science and technology; Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development; and Peace, Security and Violence against Women. The rest are: Governance and legal protection; Finance and gender budgeting; Women in decision making; and young women’s movements. The declaration of the decade by the AU was to reinforce commitments to accelerate the implementation of agreed global and regional commitment of gender equality and women’s empowerment. Delivering the keynote address, Dr. Naadu Mills said needs of women to overcome inequality cut across all sectors; from health, economy, labour, agriculture and food security to education, security and justice, culture and chieftaincy affairs and, therefore, needed a multi-sectoral approach. The Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, Mrs. Juliana Azumah-Mensah, said although the new millennium had witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women and society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation, there was still more to be done. The UN Resident Co-ordinator, Mrs. Ruby Sandhu-Rojon, in a solidarity message, said the critical role women played in development could not be underestimated. In a speech read on her behalf by the UN Women Country Co-ordinator, Mrs. Afua Ansre, Mrs. Sandhu-Rojon said over the last 30 years or more that many governments all over the world had made several commitments to gender equality and the empowerment of women, as reflected in the various conventions and treaties signed, but those commitments had been inhibited by various issues. Those issues, she said, included socio-cultural practices, inadequate technical capacities to main-stream gender into development efforts, the lack of sex desegregated data and inadequate funds for programmed activities. The Country Programme Officer, Ghana Country Office of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr. Patrick Agboma, pledged the bank’s readiness to help promote gender equality in the country and on the continent as a whole. The President of the National House of Chiefs, Wulugunaba Naa Professor John S. Nabila, who chaired the launch, said the realisation of women’s rights required the combined and complementary effort of different stakeholders and sectors. Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana