ngfully in the political life of their countries beyond the level of their local communities."37
Women have been poorly represented at policy-making levels on the boards of statal and parastatal bodies. Ghana's National Council on Women and Development (NCWD), established by the government in 1975 to promote the objectives of International Women's Year and the UN Decade for Women (1976-85), has been working towards improving women's involvement at this level by compiling a directory of qualified women in various professions who should be considered for Board positions as they arise. While the NCWD estimates that there are sufficient numbers of educated women with qualifications comparable to most male Board members to comprise one-third membership of all statutory bodies, it remains a battle to keep at least one woman on all Boards.38
The importance of having women in policy and decision-making positions at all levels could hardly be overestimated. These women provide insight into women's concerns and how they are affected by government policy, and can help to initiate and direct the implementation of programmes and activities in support of women's interests, their health,education and political participation. Furthermore, such women can act as role-models for a younger generation of African women seeking to throw off the chains of their oppression and break the hold of the serpent.
While women in decision-making positions and in government are best placed to push for greater gender equity in education, employment and political participation, the vast majority of women feel powerless to affect such changes, trapped as they are in a subordinate position within the gender division of labour in the home, the fields and the workplace. For these women, the weight of culture and tradition keeps their sphere of influence small. In my next lecture I propose to examine the role of culture, tradition and law in restricting or promoting greater gender equality. If Africa's Eve's potential contribution to economic and social development is to be fully realised, we must examine these basic structures of our societies, so often taken for granted, and further, we must discard that which holds us back and embrace that which moves us forward on the path to gender equity.
2 Florence Abena Dolphyne (1991).
3 UNICEF (1992).
4 Statistical Office of the UN Secretariat (1989).
5 Florence Abene Dolphyne (1991) The Emancipation of Women: An African Perspective, Accra: Ghana Universities Press.
6 S.V. Sethuraman (1989) Women in the Informal Sector: A Review of Evidence from Developing Countries, Geneva: ILO.
8 Kate Young (1993) Planning Development with Women: Making a World of Difference, London: Macmillan.
9 Esther Boserup (1970) Women's Role in Economic Development, London: George Allen and Unwin.
10 Lynne Brydon and Sylvia Chant (1989) Women in the Third World: Gender Issues in Rural and Urban Areas, Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
11 Marianne A. Ferber (1982) "Women and Work: Issues of the 1980s", Signs, Volume 8, Number 2, Winter.
12 Almroth et. al. (1979).
13 Miriam Labboc and Peggy Konniz-Booher, eds. (1990) Breastfeeding: Protecting a Natural Resource, Washington: Institute for International Studies in Natural Family Planning.
14 Stina Almroth, Ted Greiner and Michael C. Latham, (1979) "Economic importance of breastfeeding", Food and Nutrition, Vol.5 No.2.
16 "The Economic Value of Breastfeeding", Women's Health Journal, No.8, July/August 1988.
17 Population Reference Bureau (1986) Women in the World: The Women's Decade and Beyond, Washington: Population Reference Bureau, Inc.
18 Ruth Leger Sivard (1985) Women: A World Survey, Washington: World Priorities.
19 John Kenneth Galbraith (1973) Economics and the Public Purpose, New York: Signet.
20 Statistical Office of the United Nations Secretariat (1989) "Statistics and Indicators on Women's Participation in the Economy" in 1989 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, New York: UN.
21 Lawrence Summers (1993) "The most influential investment", People and the Planet, Vol.2 No.1.
22 Ann Cot