The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences has honoured women whose leadership and contributions are helping to shape Ghana, with Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang calling for stronger efforts to remove the barriers that limit women’s progress.
Speaking at the maiden Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences Women’s Awards in Accra, the Vice President said Ghanaian women have played important roles in the country’s development long before women gained wider access to formal education and public office.
She said women have historically contributed to agriculture, fishing, mining, trading, healthcare, leadership and even warfare, but many of these contributions were not formally recognised.
“Women built communities. They farmed. They fished. Women mined. They produced goods, processed and traded,” Professor Opoku-Agyemang said.
She noted that the introduction of formal education and colonial institutions created new pathways to employment and public leadership, but access to those opportunities was unequal.
According to her, education has since become one of the most important tools for advancing women’s participation in professional and public life.
However, she said, significant barriers remain.
“For an earlier generation, the obstacle must have been access to the classroom. Today, it may be finance, professional advancement, leadership, decision making, or the courage to confront prejudice,” she said.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang said the government was implementing measures intended to improve women’s access to opportunities, including the Affirmative Action Act, the revised National Gender Policy and the establishment of a Women’s Development Bank.
She also encouraged the Academy to continue recognising women from rural and grassroots communities whose contributions may not always receive national attention.
Women’s contributions go beyond visible positions
President of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Emerita Professor Isabella Akyinbah, said the awards were designed not only to celebrate women whose achievements are already widely known, but also those making significant contributions away from the spotlight.
She described these contributions as the “quiet factor” the often unseen work of women that creates visible and lasting change in communities and institutions.
According to Professor Akyinbah, national development does not happen only in Parliament, corporate boardrooms or other high-profile spaces.
It also takes place in markets, schools, clinics, communities and workplaces, where women contribute daily to solving problems, creating opportunities and supporting others.
She said recognising such women was important because it demonstrates that leadership and excellence can emerge from every level of society.
The awards were held under the theme “Breaking Barriers and Building Nations: Celebrating Women in Outstanding Leadership in Ghana.”
The event also reflected on the Academy’s own history, including the contribution of its first female fellow, Dr Letitia Obeng, who delivered a lecture on Nation Building and the African Woman in 1972.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang said more than five decades later, the central question remains how to ensure that women have the opportunity to fully use their abilities in Ghana’s institutions, economy and governance.
She urged stakeholders to ensure that progress made at the top is matched by opportunities for women at the grassroots.
“It is on us to ensure that the opportunities available to women are as expansive as the contributions we have always expected them to make,” she said.
The maiden awards therefore served both as a celebration of women who have broken barriers and a call for greater recognition and support for women whose everyday contributions continue to help build Ghana.
