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Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), has reiterated the need to increase efforts at empowering women, especially in the Public Services, to propel the growth of the nation.

She stated that successes chalked by women in leadership positions indicated that corruption reduced when more women aspired for Public Service appointments.

Nana Oye Lithur made the call at a commemorative colloquium to mark the United Nations/African Union Day Public Services Day in Accra on the theme: “The Role of Public Service in Women Empowerment, Innovation and Accessible Service Delivery.”

The Gender Minister said education was a major component in achieving women empowerment.

She explained that all women who had played significant roles in public service did so because they had educational empowerment.

Education, she said, was therefore a prerequisite to women’s rise to prominence in public service.

Government, she noted, was working to improve the quality of education, especially at the basic level, resulting in the narrowing of the gender gap in school enrolment.

“Current literacy rate for women stands at 68 per cent as compared to 80.2 per cent for men. The gender parity index on general enrolment in schools increased from 0.85 in 2009/2010 to 0.91 in 2013/2014,” she said.

She noted that World Bank report indicated that government expenditure as a percentage of GDP on education stood at 5.5 per cent in 2010, and went up to 8.1 per cent in 2011.

Nana Oye Lithur said the choice of the theme for the 2015 Public Services Day was very significant, as this year marked an important milestone in women empowerment efforts, including the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

The African Union Heads of State has also declared 2015 as the year of women empowerment and development towards Agenda 2030 and the fortieth anniversary of Ghana’s national women machinery, now the MoGCSP.

She noted that the public sector had been an avenue for women to excel, offering training programmes that enhanced skill and potentials of women, many women in the recent past occupying the highest positions in various public service organizations in Ghana.

These include the Head of the Public Service Commission – Mrs Bridget Katriku, Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, and immediate past Speaker of Parliament Mrs Joyce Bamford Addo.

She said the Ministry of Gender in order to address the challenges associated with women representation in political institutions, had sponsored and drafted the Affirmative Action Bill, intended to ensure the progressive achievement of gender equality in political, social, economic and educational spheres in society.

“Government shall ensure that not less than 40 per cent of appointments to positions of authority and decision-making in the body politic consists of women,” she stated, adding that this quota also applied to security services.

The Gender Ministry had also drafted a National Gender Policy and submitted to cabinet to address gender equality, equity and empowerment of women.

The Minister said government was taking action to address challenges in the delivery of gender-responsive and equitable services to all, especially women.

“These efforts can be seen in part through the development of multi-sectoral public service initiatives, to address key areas, such as violence against women, maternal mortality and gender and democratic governance,” she concluded.

Mrs. Bridget Katriku, Chairman of the Public Services Commission (PSC) called for inclusion of more women in decision-making positions in the country, as they were currently male-dominated.

“Women and men have different experiences, and it is therefore important that both men and women are in positions of influence in order to bring these experiences and perspectives into the decision-making process,” she stated.

She bemoaned the low numbers of women in state institutions who were heads, describing the proportions of women to men in decision-making positions as unacceptable.

There were currently only four female Chief Directors out of 27, and 18 female Civil Service Directors out of 65, while the proportion of male to female Chief Executives in other Public Services was about 1:30.

She advocated the acceleration of the pace of women empowerment in Africa since the current pace would take more than one hundred years to gain equality between men and women in socio-economic development, by placing more women in decision-making positions and giving priority to women’s issues in the development agenda.