Twenty-five (25) participants from member-agencies of the RDC2 – Social Development Committee (SDC) exited the Pamegafanan Hall on January 22, 2016 equipped with a better understanding on gender and development (GAD).

This after the 18 female and 5 male GAD focal persons attended the three-day leveling session on basic GAD concepts conducted by the SDC in partnership with the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW).

Held at the NEDA-RDC2 Building, the leveling session was aimed at enhancing the knowledge of the members of the GAD Focal Point System (GFPS) and capacitating them on gender analysis and GAD planning and budgeting.

“GAD is about recognizing that gender biases impede development as these prevent people, both men and women, from attaining their full potentials,” said Dr. Cherrie Melanie A. Diego, a member of the PCW GAD Resource Pool.

“That way, we can enable them to become effective contributors to development,” she added.

Dr. Diego, the OIC-Regional Director of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Regional Office 1 in San Fernando, La Union, averred that “GAD is towards women’s empowerment and their full participation in the development process.”

“Women are half of the country’s population, which means that they comprise half of the producers of economic goods and services,” she emphasized. “GAD sharpens the focus of development on people and enhances the capacities of both women and men to contribute to the attainment of development goals.”

Gender Mainstreaming

Ms. Marie Grace Manay of the PCW introduced gender mainstreaming and presented the Gender Mainstreaming Evaluation Framework (GMEF).

“GAD mainstreaming is the inclusion of a gender perspective in the design and implementation of development plans and programs and is a strategy to ensure that the concerns for gender equality are considered in the mainstream,” said Ms. Manay.

She further said that the GMEF is a tool to track and assess the progress of gender mainstreaming activities of government agencies or the private sector.

Meanwhile, Ms. Kimberly Anne Teodoro gave a step-by-step procedure on how to properly prepare the GAD Accomplishment Report Matrix.

Harmonized GAD Guidelines

Ms. Joseline P. Niwane, another member of the PCW GAD Resource Pool, oriented the participants on the Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines (HGDG).

“The HGDG was conceptualized to provide a common set of analytical concepts and tools for integrating gender concerns into development programs and projects,” said Ms. Niwane, who also serves as the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Officer of the Provincial Government of Ifugao.

She added that the HGDG should be used by people and agencies involved in developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating development interventions. These include LGUs, foreign assistance donors, technical advisers, and oversight agencies like the NEDA.

“To put it simply, the HGDG ensures the gender-responsiveness of programs and projects in the various stages of the project cycle,” Ms. Niwane explained.

“As called for by the guideline, use the GAD checklist to see whether a program or project contains any of the core elements of gender-responsiveness and look out for components such as the participation of women and men in the identification of the problem, the conduct of gender analysis to anticipate possible gender-related issues, and some other GAD statements and activities that respond to the identified gender issues,” Ms. Niwane elucidated.

Hands-on sample GAD planning and budgeting

To let the participants have a feel of how the HGDG can be applied in assessing the gender-responsiveness of a program or project, they were asked to apply the HGDG checklists on sample projects.

Another workshop had them grouped according to the sectors where their respective agencies belong to and were asked to accomplish the GAD planning and budgeting form.

In closing the activity, NEDA OIC-Assistant Regional Director Ferdinand P. Tumaliuan encouraged the participants to be more active as GAD focal persons of their respective agencies and as members of the region’s GFPS.

In their response, the participants expressed their desire for more sessions such as this to further enhance their skills and level of knowledge on GAD. ##