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

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.