The department, which said women and girls are crucial to its new development plan in Ghana, stated that out of the aforementioned jobs to be created, 55,000 would be for women.
“DFID’s new strategy will also provide cash grants to over 250,000 of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Ghana, 75 per cent of which will be for women to ensure that 160,000 children attend school for the next four years and increase the efficiency of government spending, leading to savings of around £50m (GH¢115m) by 2015,” the department which leads the UK government’s fight against world poverty said in a document presented to CITY &BUSINESS GUIDE.
The document said UK will increase development assistance to Ghana from £85m in 2010/11 to £100m in 2014/15. “This equates to £375m (GH¢900 million) over the next four-years,” the document added.
Meanwhile, DFID’s new Country Director for Ghana, Sally Taylor, arrived earlier this month to lead the delivery of the new plans. “Over the last 20 years, continued economic growth and political stability have combined to put the country on target to halve extreme poverty by 2015, but there is much work to do.
I will be paying particular attention to ensure the DFID team delivers on our two cross-cutting priorities: women and girls and poverty reduction and growth in the North,” Ms Taylor said in Accra on Thursday.
She added, “I’m very aware that many women and girls in Ghana do not have the opportunities that were open to me and my sisters. I want to ensure that each girl gets her chance of a good education, safe motherhood and an equal opportunity to earn a livelihood.”
Sally Taylor joined DFID in 1990. She started as a Statistics Adviser, working on DFID-supported programmes to build national statistical capacity in a number of African and Asian countries.
In 1999, she worked on debt issues and was involved in the international discussions to revise and extend the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.
She also spent four years in India managing the UK’s assistance to Andhra Pradesh. For the last five years, Sally has led DFID’s International Financial Institutions Department, which is responsible for UK’s relationships and funding with the multilateral development banks, including the African Development Bank (ADB).
Sally said she was delighted to be leading DFID’s programme in Ghana which has a multi national team of 31 professional and technical staff. She is responsible for providing strategic direction and the implementation of policies.
DFID’s Deputy Country Director, Daniel Graymore, on his part, said whilst Ghana is making good progress on a number of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it was struggling to meet some gender-specific targets, including halving maternal mortality and achieving gender equality at all levels of education.
“This is why DFID will ensure all UKaid programmes consider women and girls in their design and it will be the focus of many interventions.
I am committed to ensuring the UK lives up to its promise to help the Government of Ghana get 160,000 more girls into lower secondary school over the next four years.”
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British Government Department To Create 144,000 Jobs