Only 4.1% of Ghana’s Assembly Members Are Women — Report Demands Urgent Action

Ghana enters its 2027 local election cycle with a stark democratic deficit: fewer than one in every 25 district assembly members is a woman, a figure that new research warns will not change without direct intervention to eliminate political violence targeting female candidates.

Despite the average share of women in Ghana’s Parliament rising from nine percent in 2000 to 15 percent in 2024, the figure remains far short of the 30 percent target set for 2026, while representation at the district assembly level has stagnated at just 4.1 percent.

The findings were central to a roundtable convened in Accra by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ghana and the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), which brought together researchers, diplomats, and policymakers to map the barriers standing between women and meaningful political participation ahead of the district assembly elections.

Senior Researcher Diana Højlund Madsen, drawing on 134 interviews with politically active women across Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, presented evidence that female politicians routinely face physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and symbolic violence specifically designed to force them out of public life and preserve male-dominated political structures.

The forms of intimidation documented in the research range from threats against family members and sexualised harassment to coordinated moral attacks and online abuse campaigns. Madsen argued that numerical representation targets, while necessary, miss the deeper problem. “Violence and intimidation are not isolated incidents. They are structured obstacles that shape who is able to stand for office and remain in politics,” she said.

UNDP Ghana Resident Representative Niloy Banerjee called for temporary gender quotas at local government level and said Ghana’s trained security forces should be deployed to protect women in politics. He also urged political parties to create safer environments for female candidates and stressed that a women-led peacebuilding strategy was already being implemented at the community level in selected northern districts.

Danish Ambassador Jakob Linulf acknowledged that deeply rooted cultural barriers could not be dismantled overnight but argued that sustained legal reform and continuous advocacy could progressively open political spaces. He urged both men and women to actively enforce existing anti-discrimination laws rather than wait for new ones.

The roundtable also examined Ghana’s obligations under international frameworks including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 2250, both of which commit Ghana to meaningful inclusion of women in governance and peacebuilding. Researchers noted that despite these commitments, practical progress at the local level remains limited.

Madsen closed with a direct challenge to institutions: “Legal reforms are important, but they are not enough. Political parties, local authorities, election bodies and civil society must work together to ensure that women can participate in politics without fear. Safer politics is not only about protecting individual women — it is about strengthening democracy.”