NGOs tasked to work to give voice to women and the marginalised in society

The Executive Director and Founder of Hope for Future Generations, (HFFG) Madam Cecilia Senoo has entreated the watershed programme partners in Ghana to integrate issues involving gender equality and social inclusion into the watershed projects.
She said, this was needed to address the status quo, which sidelines women in decision making.
According to Madam Senoo, inclusion was critical in development since they were aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and focused on inclusion to ensure women were an integral part of all development efforts.
She made the remarks in an interview after a 3-day training workshop held in Accra for  partners in the watershed project in Ghana and West Africa on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in Accra.

 
The workshop, which was coordinated by HFFG with support from Simavi had participants drawn from watershed programme implementing partners, including IRC Ghana, the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS), Conservation Foundation (CF), Akvo, CFN, and Ghana Wash Journalists Network (GWJN).
It aimed at building the capacity of the partners to collectively identify GESI issues at the local level for better planning and delivery of WASH services.
“Let us endeavor to integrate gender issues into every program interventions, not just in water and sanitation alone, but in all spheres of life,” she added.
Madam Senoo added: “If we talk about GESI, we are looking especially at women and girls, who are left behind because their voices are not loud enough to be heard.”

One critical area where gender imbalance is identified is the inability of women to make their voices heard and their views counted in the decision making process at home and  their communities.
To this end, participants were urged to address the issue of GESI as partners and the country as a whole, since it is crucial to engage women in decision-making processes within the communities where they reside and obtain their livelihoods.
 
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Matthew Dadzie