Box 6.5 (Continued) assembly members handle their assembly work. Mobility challenges means that they are less able to show up at the assembly as often as men (which seems to be an important strategy for learning about opportunities and reminding staff of their requests). Mobility challenges also mean that women may not be able to visit communities in which they are not resident, which affects their relationships with their constituents. This may affect assembly members in the savannah zone in particular, where few district assembly members reside in their constituency. Time in the assembly seems to be one of the biggest factors predicting the success of an assembly member. Although this seems gender neutral at face value, women are only slowly entering local government activities in Ghana and thus have less experience within the system to draw on. Presumably, this will change as women’s tenure in local governance grows. However, there may be gender-specific factors, such as time constraints caused by family obligations, that dissuade women from having as long a tenure in the assembly as men. Source: Ghana case studies 2008.
members paid close attention to sanitation, which received little attention by households (unlike in the transition zone). None of the female household heads ranked it as a concern. This discrepancy may reflect different levels of awareness, as a number of water and sanitation projects in that zone may have aimed to build awareness specifically among assembly members. Perceptions of the role and effectiveness of female assembly members. Gender training was widespread among district assembly members: 73 percent of male and 80 percent of female assembly members had received training with a gender component (table 6.12). All female district assembly members felt they had the same advantages as male assembly members. Eighty percent of male assembly members agreed with their female counterparts on this question, and the difference between men and women was not statistically significant. Among male district assembly members who believed that their female counterparts did not have the same advantages, one cited the outspokenness of men in assembly deliberations as the reason for this; another said of female assembly members, “Most are not popular.� No statistical difference could be determined between men and women on the question of whether male and female district assembly members had the same responsibilities toward women: 4 of the 6 female respondents and 54 percent of the 46 male respondents believed that promoting the interests of women was equally the responsibility of all assembly members. Men were slightly more likely than women (96 percent versus 80 percent) to believe that female assembly members were very effective or somewhat effective in promoting the interests of women, a
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GENDER AND GOVERNANCE IN RURAL SERVICES