NDPC calls for gender-responsive planning to address barriers to women’s economic empowerment

The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has called for stronger integration of gender considerations into national development planning and budgeting to address structural barriers to women’s economic empowerment.

It said development policies must translate into practical interventions that guarantee women equitable access to finance, productive resources and decent employment opportunities to ensure inclusive economic growth.

Mrs Alice Amekudzi, Director of Development Policy at the NDPC, made the call on behalf of the Commission’s Director-General at the WEE-Ghana Close-Out Conference held in Accra on Tuesday.

The conference, held on the theme: “Beyond Policy Intent: Re-examining Policies and Their Implications for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Ghana,” examined how existing policies could better respond to the economic challenges confronting women.

Mrs Amekudzi said women constituted 50.7 per cent of Ghana’s population and played a significant role in the economy, particularly in entrepreneurship and self-employment.

Citing data from the Ghana Statistical Service, she said 69.3 per cent of employed women were self-employed, while women owned 84 per cent of businesses operating in open spaces across the country.

She said the figures underscored the need for development planning to recognise women’s economic contributions and address the constraints that limited their access to opportunities and productive resources.

Mrs Amekudzi said the NDPC was strengthening gender-responsive development planning through the Medium-Term National Development Policy Framework (MTNDPF) 2026–2029 and two toolkits designed to guide public institutions in integrating gender considerations into planning and budgeting.

The toolkits are the Toolkit for Mainstreaming Gender-Responsiveness in Planning and Budgeting and the Toolkit for Integrating Unpaid Care Work into Development Plans.

She said the latter guided institutions to recognise and address the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work borne by women and girls, which could constrain their participation in economic activities.

On the contribution of research to policy development, Mrs Amekudzi said findings from the WEE-Ghana Project offered valuable evidence for identifying gaps in existing policies and improving their implementation.

The three-year research project examined six thematic areas, including financial inclusion, digitalisation, government spending, domestic revenue mobilisation, care and employment.

She encouraged the University of Ghana and its partners to disseminate the research findings to relevant government institutions to inform policy decisions and strengthen national and local development planning processes.

Mrs Amekudzi urged stakeholders to move beyond policy commitments and pursue concrete interventions that would deliver measurable improvements in women’s economic opportunities and livelihoods.

She congratulated the University of Ghana, the WEE-Ghana research team, the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) and the Executive Women’s Network (EWN) for their contributions to the successful implementation of the project.

Judith Twumwaa, ISD