Involve Gender Ministry in Women Empowerment Programmes- Minister to Development Part

The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, has called on development partners to involve her Ministry from the planning stage of programmes that have gender components.

The call was made when the Ambassador of France to Ghana, H.E. Diarra Dime-Labille, led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on her to discuss collaboration on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Dr Lartey said that although gender is treated as a cross-cutting issue across many institutions, it often gets overshadowed by broader sector priorities, leaving women behind as sectors like agriculture become more formalised and technology-driven.

She urged the French Embassy to engage the Ministry early, citing the proposed 2027 Women Economic Empowerment Programme as an opportunity for joint planning rather than bringing the Ministry in after key decisions have been made.

She also asked the Embassy to share its gender action plans for alignment with Ghana’s National Gender Policy.

Ambassador Dime-Labille had earlier said France considers gender equality a key pillar of its foreign policy and sees strong potential for collaboration with Ghana in areas such as women’s entrepreneurship and agriculture to promote innovation, food security and economic opportunities for women.

Both sides agreed to identify practical areas of cooperation to advance women’s empowerment in Ghana.

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