THE Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-National Capital Region (NCR), the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) and United Nations Women Philippines held a forum “Mind the GAP (Gender and Poverty) at the PICC with the theme “Accelerating the Achievement of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls.”
The forum addressed “poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective.”
It aimed to recognize poverty as a human rights issue, strategizing to protect and fulfill the rights of impoverished women, address current and future challenges in promoting general equality and share efforts and best practices in enhancing women’s economic participation. The forum is paying tribute to women’s month.
DOST Secretary Dr. Renato U. Solidum Jr. in his keynote speech said, “the DOST advances its gender main streaming efforts and called for a deeper understanding of gender differences, access to resources and opportunities ensuring immense contributions to and benefit from and building people’s capacities to assess to aid and implement solutions.”
Sigrid Jan Sibug, Technical and Policy and Coordination Consultant – PPO at UN Women, Philippines said gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but “it is a transformative force that has enormous economic benefit.”“UN women is a UN organization that is dedicated to gender equality and women empowerment. It delivers programs, policies and standards that hold the right of women and make sure that women truly benefit from the economic development from each country that the world is experiencing,” Sibug expounded.
DOST Undersecretary for regional operations, Engr. Sancho Mabborang mentioned the government’s initiatives in support of women. He cited the challenges of women-led enterprises, such as lack of access to support services such as finance and skills training, business continuity and scaling up, limited use of digital methods for businesses and multiple burden.
Fabio Pompetti, Consul, First Secretary and Deputy head of Mission of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium, was also one of the resource persons. He talked on “Crossing The Digital Gender Divide.” ”It’s good to see that the Philippines is doing quite well in gender equality,” he told the forum attendees. “The Philippine government is very committed to achieve gender equality.”
He said the country is doing better than Belgium because it never had a woman head of state “while the Philippines it had at least two.”
Merly Barlaan, a peace and environment advocate, a chief administrative officer of the Women Federation for World Peace International (WFWPI) in New York City talked about “Harnessing the power of Science, Technology and Innovation to help women move out of poverty.”
She currently holds more than 120 chapters of WFWPI. Barlaan recalled her poor childhood life in the province of Bohol close to the famous Chocolate Hills, with very limited access to food, education and other basic needs.
Barlaan remembered a government official said that global problems are conflict, Covid-19 and climate change or the three Cs.
NCR regional director, Engr. Romelen T. Tresvalles delivered the closing remarks for the forum that has yet to be concluded the following day. She was grateful to everyone who contributed to the success of the event.
