Accra, Ghana//-Overall, progress on key gender outcomes in Ghana, surpassing Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) averages, however, significant challenges remain as women and girls fare worse on all outcomes in the rural areas.
HUMAN ENDOWMENTS
EDUCATION
Girls’ overall educational attainment at the primary and secondary level has improved over the last decade and surpasses SSA averages, but rural girls still lag in attendance, performance, and completion.
At the tertiary level, women are less likely than men to be enrolled in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) (39% vs 61%) and are concentrated mostly in nursing and midwifery, and teacher-training colleges. Highly demanded subjects like STEM are male dominated, according to the Ghana Ministry of Education, 2021.
The proportion of girls attending primary school in rural areas is 7 percentage points lower than in urban areas (79% vs 86%).
HEALTH
Total fertility and maternal mortality rates have been declining and are consistently lower than SSA averages, however, fertility is higher among women in rural areas, especially younger women.
JOBS
Compared to SSA, Ghana has adopted various laws that strengthen working women’s rights and opportunities, and women are participating in the labour force at a higher rate. However, women, especially younger women, are more vulnerable than men in the labour market, as the nature of their employment is more precarious.
ASSETS
More women own a financial institution account or mobile money account in Ghana than in SSA. However, in Ghana, women are less likely than men to own property and have bank accounts. Their low bank account ownership is mirrored in their limited access to credit.
Few women borrow money to start, run, or expand a farm or business, despite Ghana having the highest percentage of women owned businesses (46%) in the world, according to Master Card Index of Women Entrepreneur 2018. Women tend to resort to family and friends and savings clubs, rather than formal financial institutions when in need of credit.
VOICE AND AGENCY
Women and girls have low autonomy in household decision making. Women are more likely than men to experience and condone domestic violence, and the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) is significantly higher for women with disabilities.
Women’s political participation and active engagement is low. Additionally, women are less likely to be in leadership positions in firms.
MULTIPLE CRISES ARE FURTHER COMPOUNDING THE CHALLENGES WOMEN FACE
INFLATION
High costs of living exacerbate an already uneven economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic for women.
High food inflation places a significant burden on women, especially poor households who spend more than half of their income on food.
High food prices remain the main driver of acute food insecurity, particularly in the northern regions.
Women tend to adopt coping strategies to cushion food inflation, such as collecting wild food, selling assets, migrating, or taking on extra and more precarious work.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Women & girls’ socially ascribed roles and responsibilities, coupled with their concentration in agriculture, makes them disproportionate users of natural resources.
Women are acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because it exacerbates the existing outcomes of entrenched gender inequality and poses unique threats to their lives.
HOW CAN THESE KEY GENDER GAPS BE ADDRESSED?
The Ghana Country Gender Action Plan (C – GAP) is a country-driven analytical and operational roadmap that guides the World Bank’s effort to reduce inequalities between men and women and boys and girls, through operations, policies, and advisory work.
The Ghana C – GAP sets out three priority areas based on analytical work – that comprised a review of the Ghana 2021 Population and Housing Census, World Bank’s Ghana portfolio, 2021 Women, Business and the Law, priorities for donor programming, Government of Ghana’s National Gender Policy (2015), and various other sources – to understand gaps and priorities.
The C – GAP is aligned with the World Bank Group’s Ghana Country Partnership Framework (CPF) FY22-FY26, the World Bank Group’s Gender Strategy (FY16-FY23), the World Bank’s Western and Central Africa Regional Gender Action Plan (FY23-FY27), and the Government of Ghana’s National Gender Policy 2015.
The C – GAP complements donor programming and intends to build synergies with development partners to improve gender outcomes and close stubborn gender gaps.
C – GAP PRIORITIES
-Expand employment and skills diversification of women entrepreneurs and wage earners in key sectors.
Address supply and demand side barriers to better translate human endowment gains to greater economic outcomes for women, especially younger women, and women in rural areas and northern regions.
-Improve women’s access to and use of productive assets and resources to support the transition out of low productive sectors. Improve women’s income opportunities in high productive sectors and boost their socioeconomic status through better access to and use of assets and resources.
-Remove barriers to, and promote women’s decision-making autonomy, agency, and self-efficacy to support women’s economic livelihoods.
Tackle gendered social norms that undermine women’s decision-making autonomy in public and private spaces.
OVERVIEW OF C – GAP PRIORITIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The C-GAP priorities are intended (i) to be multi-sectoral to underline that gender equality goes beyond the mandate of one sector, and (ii) to be inter-connected, such that actions under one priority can boost achieving actions under another.
C – GAP PRIORITY 1: EXPAND EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS DIVERSIFICATION OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AND WAGE EARNERS IN KEY SECTORS
INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT
Informal employment within agriculture is the main source of work for women.
Constraints to Expanding Women’s Employment
- The urban-rural divide for women is particularly stark in educational outcomes and labour force participation as rural women are more likely to face barriers such as teenage pregnancy, child marriage, uneven domestic burden, and unpaid seasonal work.
- Women are almost twice as likely to be time-poor compared to men, affecting labor force participation (35% vs 18%) (Zacharias et al., 2018).
Due to the time and energy spent on unpaid domestic work and unpaid family farm work, women dedicate less time to income-generating activities and schooling and almost no time for rest and leisure.
- Agriculture remains the main source of work for women, and the increased frequency and intensity of climate-related shocks pose significant challenges to household food security and livelihoods particularly in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.
C – GAP Recommendation for Action
- Provide quality education (includes improving performance outcomes and completion rates at the secondary level and options for non-traditional subject choices at the tertiary level) to prepare girls to participate in non-traditional sectors with better income to break the poverty cycle.
- Diversify women’s occupational choices by promoting access to various skills development programs and lifelong learning opportunities to transition women out of low-productive sectors and boost income particularly in rural and northern areas.
- Address underlying gendered social norms that result in women’s time poverty and confine women to traditional female sectors and roles and support solutions to these constraints including childcare options.
C – GAP PRIORITY 2: IMPROVE WOMEN’S ACCESS TO AND USE OF PRODUCTIVE ASSETS AND RESOURCES TO SUPPORT THE TRANSITION OUT OF LOW – PRODUCTIVITY SECTORS
FINANCIAL INCLUSION
Women’s financial inclusion is low, and they tend to resort to family, friends, and savings clubs, rather than formal financial institutions.
Constraints to Improving Women’s Access to and Use of Resources
- Although the law protects women’s property rights, their customary rights to own and use property are insecure, as evidenced by the fact that men hold 3.2 times more of the total farms despite women producing about 70% of the country’s subsistence crops (UNDP, 2019).
- Despite Ghana having the highest rate of women-owned businesses (46%) in the world, lack of access to land exacerbates women’s financial exclusion as they are unable to use property as collateral for credit.
C – GAP Recommendation for Action
- Increase women’s access to and use of assets and resources (land, credit, extension services, markets, networks, etc.) to improve productivity and income and promote economic growth especially in rural areas.
- Diversify out of traditional crops to high-value crops and support women to add value to their products through climate smart technologies, technical trainings, extension services, and access to digital information.
- Address underlying gendered social norms and structural gender exclusion that impact how women access, use and benefit from assets and resources through policy and legal frameworks as well as gender transformative projects.
C – GAP PRIORITY 3: REMOVE BARRIERS AND PROMOTE WOMEN’S DECISION – MAKING AUTONOMY, AGENCY, AND SELF – EFFICACY TO SUPPORT WOMEN’S ECONOMIC LIVELIHOODS
GENDERED SOCIAL NORMS
Although there is a legal framework against gender inequality and discrimination, its effectiveness is hindered by implementation challenges and pervasive societal norms that continue to limit women to the home and prevent them from accessing education and livelihood opportunities at the same rates as men and boys.
Constraints to Promoting Women’s Decision-Making Autonomy
- Prevalent gendered social norms are a key driver of unequal gender outcomes as they normalize the belief that men should exert control over women and girls across several dimensions thus maintaining inequitable power relationships in both public and private spheres.
- Gender-based violence continues to unequally impact women throughout their lifecycle, and further dimensions of inequality such as poverty, mental illness, or exposure to violence in childhood, increase the likelihood of experiencing violence and create an additional barrier to education and economic empowerment.
- Women are excluded from local government decision-making and are usually restricted to gendered positions such as “women’s organizer” which prevents them from having significant systemic impact.
C – GAP Recommendation for Action
- Provide opportunities for women to participate in decision-making processes at the household, local and national levels, as well as in business and political spheres.
- Break intergenerational cycles of domestic violence by engaging men, boys, women, and girls through community outreach and capacity building efforts to tackle gendered social norms.
- Support women’s reproductive decision-making autonomy to address prevalence of teenage pregnancy and maternal mortality and improve women and girl’s educational attainment, labour force participation, earnings, and productivity.
Curled from Ghana Country Gender Action Plan (C-GAP) released in March 2023
