Women s role in improved economic performance Background The Government of Ghana s program to develop a gender strategy has been supported by the World Bank. The Bank team worked closely with Ghanaian Ministries of Agriculture, Micro-finance, Education, and Health to identify gender issues and study feasible recommendations. Along with the government, a broad range of stakeholders participated in the study, including academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, and women s groups. Many of the stakeholders also emphasized the importance of strengthening Ghana s institutional capacity to develop and implement policies that adequately address gender concerns. Main Findings Women and men in Ghana have distinctly different daily activities and social constraints.
Women do different work than men.
Women make up roughly 85 percent of the wholesale and retail trading industries and about two-thirds of manufacturing, working mostly in the informal sector. In agriculture, women usually grow food while men grow cash crops. Relatively few women work in modern or formal sector activities. Girls receive less education than boys. Lack of collateral partly because of weak land tenure rights may exacerbate women s difficulty in getting as much credit as they need from formal sources.