Non-Formal Education and Women's Participation in Local Governance

Since the United Nations Declaration of the Decade for Women in 1975 following the global outcry of poor and low participation of women in decision making and in politics in the 1980s, the Government of Ghana with its institutions and international donor agencies and organisations started increasing their focus on empowering women by providing Non-Formal Education (NFE) programmes. This was to raise the women's consciousness and to build their capacities and skills. The value assumption was that, if women understood their conditions, knew their rights and learnt new skills, they would be empowered to actively participate in decision making and public governance in Ghana. It was against this background that the study was designed to find out the extent to which these NFE programmes have contributed to the participation of the 2010 cohort of Assembly women in local governance in Northern sector of Ghana.