Ghana to host regional women’s conference on SDGs

Ghana is to host the first-ever regional women’s conference on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The three-day meeting would be held in Tamale, from September 21-24, under the theme “Mainstreaming the SDGs-Translating as a global agenda into a national action”.

It is being organized by the Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF), in collaboration with the United Association for Africa Affairs, an international NGO.

More than 100 women from across Africa are expected to attend.

Mr. Raphael Godlove Ahenu, Chief Executive Officer of GLOMEF, an anti-corruption and media advocacy NGO, broke the news to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani.

He said the focus would be on the SDG goals, which deal with healthy lives and promotion of the well-being for people of all ages, inclusive, equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities, gender equality, empowerment of all women and girls and access to water and sanitation.

These, he noted, would require an integrated approach to achieve them.

The conference was going to map out strategies to ensure active involvement of women at both the regional and national levels in the implementation of the SDGs.

He stated that empowering women was crucial to accelerating sustainable development.

Mr. Ahenu said efforts must therefore be intensified to address gender inequalities, to create equal access particularly to paid employment.

He expressed concern about the lack of access to water and sanitation facilities by millions of people globally and warned that if frantic measures were not taken to deal with the situation by year 2050, at least one in four people was likely to live in a country affected by chronic shortage of fresh water.

Source: GNA