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Women’s political participation and performance as local government authorities under Ghana’s decentralization system

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Abstract

Although there is considerable research on women’s political representation, not much is known within local government and sub-national political spaces. This article, therefore, investigates the nature of women’s political representation and their performance as assemblywomen under Ghana’s district assembly system of local government and development. In doing so, we address two important questions. First, how have assemblywomen performed in the delivery of democratic representation, in terms of responsiveness and downward accountability? Second, why have women’s political representation and performance as local authorities remained relatively lower compared to men? Our findings show that assemblywomen perform better in community engagement, delivery of community-driven development projects, awareness of decentralized roles and effectiveness of project delivery. However, we found that, lack of self-confidence, low educational levels, lack of affirmative policies, the cultural context, fear of losing elections and religious beliefs regarding men as household heads explain relatively lower women’s representation and performance in local government in Ghana. We recommend public education and capacity building interventions to support transformative participation of women in local governance and development in Ghana.

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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei, Richard Serbeh & Joyce Osei Adjei

  2. PMB University Post Office, KNUST, Kumasi, Ashanti Region, Ghana

    Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei

  3. Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong

    Kwaku Abrefa Busia

  4. Bureau of Integrated Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana

    Monica Addison

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  1. Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei
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  2. Richard Serbeh
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  3. Joyce Osei Adjei
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  4. Kwaku Abrefa Busia
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  5. Monica Addison
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Correspondence to Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei.

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The authors of this manuscript declare that, we have read the ethical responsibility of authors submitting to the SN Social Sciences and declare no conflict of interest.

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Also this paper has not been submitted to any other journal for concurrent consideration for publication. Informed consent of respondents were sought during data collection. We therefore agree to the implications that any ethical misconduct may result.

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Adjei, P.OW., Serbeh, R., Adjei, J.O. et al. Women’s political participation and performance as local government authorities under Ghana’s decentralization system. SN Soc Sci 2, 251 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-022-00559-6

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