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In Harmony
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Development partners and governments are increasingly discovering the value of harmonization as a key to improving the way resources are used to achieve development goals.
In the Philippines, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has joined other development organizations in assisting the Philippine Government in reviewing existing guidelines to harmonize their approaches toward gender and development (GAD).
Although the Philippine Government initially produced GAD guidelines in 1993 as a uniform blueprint for government agencies involved in development programming and implementation, funding or development agencies often found they had to contend with overlapping GAD checklists.
However, it is hoped the revised GAD guidelines, produced by the National Economic and Development Authority, with the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), and with input from the gender and development focal points of overseas assistance agencies—including ADB—will help realize the provision of the Government’s Women in Development and National Building Act, which mandates all overseas development assistance to allocate 5–30% of the resources to women and gender concerns.
"Resources are required to support new approaches and strategic initiatives linking poverty and gender and to meet the challenges of the MDGs. The harmonized guidelines are a step in the right direction"
- Susanne Wendt, ADB Social Development Specialist
“It is the first time in ADB’s experience in a developing member country (DMC) where a government and the aid community have come together to prepare and finalize a set of common guidelines for mainstreaming gender concerns in development projects and programs,” says Susanne Wendt, ADB Social Development Specialist.
“The guidelines will ensure that development assistance is delivered in accordance with the priorities of the Government of the Philippines in GAD, and also facilitate that similar approaches addressing gender issues are adopted by funding or development agencies,” she says.
The Official Development Assistance (ODA) Gender and Development Network working group met at ADB headquarters in Manila in February to discuss the revision of the guidelines. Ms. Wendt says that the number of groups represented reflects the high level of interest in harmonizing the tools for GAD mainstreaming.
ADB approved in 1998 its policy on Gender and Development, which promotes gender equity as a crosscutting strategy in all aspects of ADB’s operations. Gender considerations are mainstreamed into all ADB activities, including macroeconomic and sector work, and lending and technical assistance operations.
Ms. Wendt says, “The initiative of developing harmonized GAD guidelines also fits very well with the current challenge to more closely align poverty reduction initiatives with gender equality goals and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), of which MDG 3 is Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women by the Year 2015.”
“Resources are required to support new approaches and strategic initiatives linking poverty and gender and to meet the challenges of the MDGs. The harmonized guidelines are a step in the right direction,” she says.
In 1993, ADB provided technical assistance to NCRFW to establish and sustain a gender-disaggregated socioeconomic database, which has since been used to monitor, assess, and update the Government’s National Development Plan for Women. The Plan includes measuring how well government policies and programs address gender concerns and existing gender inequalities.
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