Gender and Development (GAD) Office held an Orientation and Training Workshop on the use of Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines (HGDG) for administrators, faculty, and college extensionists at Resorts Negrense, Bacolod City on December 6, 2022.
The Philippine Commission on Women and National Economic and Development Authority developed the HGDG to ensure that programs and project undertaken by government agencies are gender responsive. With that in mind, the GAD office organized the workshop to raise awareness on the importance of gender mainstreaming and gender analysis.
Before the training proper, President Norberto P. Mangulabnan, PhD gave a brief message and commended the activity for its direction towards equity, inclusivity, and integrity. He also stressed the importance of efficient and responsive services especially since the school is now a university.
The morning session focused on the basic concepts of the HGDG and its process. Resource speaker Emily A. Dela Cruz, PhD, Director of Iloilo Science and Technology State University Gender Center, said that including GAD in agency operations is more than just an implementation of the law. She also cited that the United Nations had identified Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality as the facilitator of the other SDGs.
Castro moved forward with the HGDG checklist which is used to identify whether an initiative or research is aligned with gender sensitive. She presented this as the mechanism used to properly utilize GAD resources.
After the lecture, participants were able to ask questions and give their observations in an open forum.
In the afternoon, the group split according to campus and participants assessed research proposals based on the guidelines discussed and HGDG checklist provided. A presentation of proposals and feedbacking followed.
