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Gender and Economic Growth Assessment for Ghana 2007
2007
International Finance Corporation and Ministry for Women and Children Affairs, Ghana
This study presents an assessment of the role of gender in economic growth in Ghana with emphasis on constraints to enterprise operations, investment and growth among womenowned firms. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women own up to a third of businesses in Africa, and that this represents a significant source for scaling up economic growth in such countries. In Ghana, women make up about 50.1 percent of the entire labor force and are mostly involved in micro enterprises and the retail trade. An estimated growth model with gender-related human capital accumulation shows that releasing the potential of women to achieve gender parity in economic activity could add as much as 2.5-3 percent to Ghana’s current aggregate output (see Annex C). In other words, a potential one-half increase in current growth rates.
Thus, there is the need to find ways of unlocking the full potential of Ghanaian women entrepreneurs to contribute to growth of the economy. In spite of the fact that gender issues in Ghana have been given significant attention over the last decade in particular; and that Ghana ranks relatively well in terms of gender equity, there remains a number of legal, administrative, and institutional barriers that impede the growth of women-owned businesses and for that matter women in general to attain their full potential. As noted in a statement by the Hon. Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, Hajia Mahama at the 36th Session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW):
“… there are challenges of financial, human and material resources constraints as well as structural limitations still to be addressed. Some specific challenges are: …under-resourcing of the Ministry and Women’s Desk in MDAs; low representation of women in political and decisionmaking structures; low enforcement of laws and implementation of policies; inadequate gender disaggregated data and benchmarks of progress in achieving gender equality and mainstreaming; the challenge of institution coordination mechanisms; inadequate research to assess laws, policies and programs; socio-cultural attitudes, biases and impediments from family and community levels to national context.” (p.8).
This therefore confirms the need for research to assess the legal and institutional framework as regards the impact on the advancement of women and women-owned businesses. This Gender and Growth Assessment for Ghana was undertaken for the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC) and coordinated by the IFC’s Private Enterprise Partnership for Africa under the Gender-Entrepreneurship Markets Initiative. The study was conducted between July and November 2006. The main tasks were: an enterprise survey of womenowned firms, a collection of baseline data on legal and administrative barriers to investment by women entrepreneurs, and a Voices of Women Entrepreneurs in Ghana publication that sampled views through focus group discussions with representative female entrepreneurs and other key stakeholders such as public sector officials, lawyers, civil society, and development partners.
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