Parliament finally passes Affirmative Action Bill into law after decades

Parliament has finally passed the Affirmative Action, Gender Equity Bill 2024.

The Bill seeks to promote a progressive increase in the active participation of women in public life from a minimum of 40% to a parity of 50% by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Speaking on the passage in parliament on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin noted that "Honourable members the ‘ayes’ have it. The Affirmative Action Gender Equality Bill 2024 now the Affirmative Action Gender Equity Act duly read the third time and passed."

Ghana's Affirmative Action Bill defines Affirmative Action as a set of measures adopted by the Government, public and private institutions to address a history of systemic discrimination and exclusion of women and to encourage their efforts towards addressing political, social, cultural, economic and educational gender imbalance in the public and private sectors in accordance with clause (4) of Article 17 of the Constitution.

Through various efforts that have been made in Ghana to balance political representation and participation between women and men, these efforts have not yielded the desired results, mainly due to the low commitment and the political will to back such initiatives.

Ghana began its quest for an Affirmative Action Law as far back as 1998 when guidelines on the Law were passed by the Cabinet.

However, as of June 2020, the Bill has still not been passed. This is due to the low commitment on the part of stakeholders towards pushing for the passage of the Bill into Law.

This low commitment has been realised because the purpose, relevance, and benefits that we stand to gain as a country have not been clearly spelt out and disseminated to all citizens.