Ghana: New Aid Agenda Reinforces Gender Inequality

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Public Agenda (Accra)

11 July 2008
Posted to the web 11 July 2008

Ama Achiaa Amankwah & Jessica Mcelfresh

A gender advocate has described the Paris Declaration (PD) on aid effectiveness as an old aid architecture with nothing new to offer.

The PD was endorsed in March 2005 at the second high level forum in Paris with the objective of enhancing better delivery and management of aid in order to improve aid effectiveness.

Ms. Kathy Cusack of the Network for Women's Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) deduced that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), the main architects of previous aid effectiveness agendas that had deep effects on the level of gender equality and poverty in developing countries, are also deeply involved in the new aid design.

"Nothing has fundamentally changed," she stated at a day's consultation on gender and aid effectiveness in Accra.

The meeting preceded the third High Level Forum to be held in Ghana from September 2 to 4 2008, to review and assess progress in the implementation of the PD on aid effectiveness and to agree on a new agenda for action.

Ms. Cusack observed that all aid entering Ghana has a political agenda attached. She said that despite the technical face of the current PD, it is a political document because of the conditions attached for donors and beneficiaries to fulfill.

She said that consequently, donors are not penalized for unfulfilled expectation, while recipients are punished with removal or reduction of aid.

Ms. Cusack said that 68 percent of pregnant women in Ghana are malnourished and she asked, "What is aid doing? Where is it going?"

Cusack noted that the efficiency of the aid is also a measurement of the sovereignty and independence of Ghana. If aid was given without restrictions, she said, the Ghanaian government could prioritize the country's needs.

"The level of Ghana's dependency on aid poses questions about the kind of sovereignty it has. Our dependency on aid has critical questions on what we can do to influence the aid processes."

She recalled that since time immemorial, aid effectiveness has been on the aid agenda. However, she said, pregnant women in Ghana are still malnourished, maternal deaths are still high and about 65% of rural women are illiterate.

Further, she said statistics show that women in developing nations are consistently living under the poverty line. In fact, 70 percent of the 1.5 billion people who live under $1 USD a day are women.

"What is aid doing? Where is the money going? What are demanding of these processes because the same issues still exist? she asked, adding that development is not possible without growth.

"We must consider the issue of gender and aid efficiency very critically," said Dr. Rose Mensah-Kutin at the conference.

Dr. Mensah-Kutin added that anytime there is a discussion on aid, and in turn on the well-being of the people in Ghana, women should have their voices heard because their well-being is an integral part of Ghana's well-being.

According to Dr. Mensah-Kutin, Ghana receives over 70 percent of its budget from outside aid and the question Ghanaians must continue to ask is how that money is utilized.

Sarah Mukasah, from the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) asked, "What is in it for us [women]? We need to look at what we have done to support our communities and it seems that those contributions are not recognized," she said. "It seems that those contributions are valued very little."

Ms. Mukasah added that she has seen a significant decrease in support for women's initiatives and women's programs in the last twenty years in Ghana.

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