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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 4
(4 of 20 pages)
I have a very bad example to give here. The government is saying all this and
we think that the government has got the good will to do it, but recently we have had occasion to worry about women
when seven women were murdered in a row and we saw very little being done on the part of the interior ministry.
We feel that if we are really committed to women's causes and we are saying that we want to get women up, then
when an opportunity like this - I call it opportunity, not because I support murder, but because I think that this
is the time for the government to say "Hey, you can't kill our women. You cannot. You have no right to touch
our women and we will pursue you wherever you are until we get you". This will make the women feel that the
government is on their side and the government will come to out aid as and when we need it.
Madame Chairman, there are so many things I can talk about here, but meanwhile I'm sure our topic also includes
a civil society and pluralism and I think I need to talk about that. Ghana is one of those countries that see development
not only in terms of the government's action, but also in the action of the private sector. We believe that it
is the private sector that can push up the economy as a whole. We believe that, as a matter of fact, our future
lies in the hands of this private sector. This private sector is not the one that takes the decisions, but the
one that helps us take the right decisions. I am talking about religious organizations, benevolent societies, NGOs,
all this, and by the very nature of who they are, they must be encouraged to help our society come forward and
in that regard the government is also encouraging and I'm sure the government really sees that so far as development
is concerned and creating jobs and so on is concerned, alone it can do very little. It will always be told that
it didn't matter if it decided to depend on itself alone and therefore encouragement to the private sector is important.
Therefore also encouragement to the civil society is crucial and I think on many occasions we have had NGOs come
to our aid and if I can link women here, we women are taking advantage of the various NGOs' activities to educate
our women and educate our children on the way forward, the use of drugs and so on. We have tried very hard to make
sure that this is done.
Madame Chair, let me touch on pluralism. I think that nobody here will say that the proliferation of parties is
bad for democracy. I think democracy exists because we recognize the fact that there are many people who also have
different ideas from our own. Different people have different ideas as to how to govern and therefore allowance
should be made for pluralism. In my own country at the moment inside parliament we have about four parties. We
have the majority party which has as many as 133 members, and the biggest minority party to which I belong has
61 members. We have one party that has five members and another party that has one member. Now, the government
is aware that these parties, even though they may not look credible enough to win now, are a big challenge, and
they therefore have to give us a place in society. Therefore, I think so far as that is concerned, Ghana has no
problem. For instance, we have different parties, we are bound to come up with different ideas and sometimes have
different contentions, as at the moment we have a problem with state-owned media. We are saying that we must be
given the same amount of time as is given to the majority party. In the long run, just before we came, we came
to a consensus on this particular issue.
I have to say that I don't have any more time and I hope I've been able to make some of the points that I wanted
to make. Thank you very much.
Chair: Thank you very much, Madame Coleman, and I'm sorry about the time, which is always a problem. I picked
up many things from your presentation, but I'd like to highlight two things: one is participation, that if you
don't participate in the process your voice will not be heard. Even if the process sometimes is not perfect, participate.
Get in there and work within the process because your voice will ultimately get heard, so we can discuss how we
can make that possible. The second thing is a question, and we can talk about very concrete ways. How can government
encourage NGOs and the private sector? Let's think on that and when we open up for discussion you can give me some
concrete examples, whether it's through law or through policies, etc.
I have the great pleasure to introduce our next speaker, Madame Teresinha da Silva, from Mozambique. She is a social
planner, Head of the Faculty of Social Sciences in Public University in Maputo (ph), the capital. She's also an
Associate Researcher at the Center of African Studies at the University. She's also a gender trainer, and works
as an activist in many national NGOs in Mozambique.
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