Davao City Water District - GAD Mainstreaming

Gender Mainstreaming

Gender Mainstreaming, also known as Gender and Development (GAD) mainstreaming, is a major global strategy for ensuring that the government pursues gender equality in all aspects of the development process in order to realize the vision of a gender-responsive society in which women and men contribute to and benefit from development equally. Its significance has been widely debated since governments agreed to it in the Beijing Platform for Action at the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in 1995.

It aims to examine the relationship between men and women in terms of access to and control over resources, decision making, and benefits and rewards within a group more thoroughly.¹ Gender mainstreaming necessitates the transformation of institutional structures, culture, and practices so that gender concerns become central rather than peripheral issues and concerns.²

What is the Mainstream?

The “mainstream” is an interconnected set of dominant ideas, values, practices, institutions, and organizations in a society that determine “who gets what.” The mainstream's ideas and practices tend to reflect and reinforce one another, providing a rationale for any given allocation of societal resources and opportunities.³

Becoming part of the mainstream means:¹

Both men and women have equal access to resources, such as opportunities and rewards. It entails equal participation in shaping options within society by influencing what is valued.
Sharing the benefits of development equitably.
Allowing you to influence who does what in a society, who owns (or has the ability to own) what, who has access to jobs and income, who controls the society's resources and institutions, who makes decisions, and who sets priorities.

Entry Points of Gender Mainstreaming

GAD Mainstreaming requires interventions from various stages, from planning to programming, budgeting, execution, monitoring and evaluation. There are four critical entry points to GAD mainstreaming, namely: policies, programs and projects, people, and enabling mechanisms. As a Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC), DCWD focuses on these areas to achieve the organization's desired level of gender mainstreaming.

Cited Sources:

¹ Innes, M. (Ed.). (2000). Accelerating Change: Resources for Gender Mainstreaming. Quebec: Canadian International Development Agency.

²A Handbook on the Application of the Enhanced Gender Mainstreaming Evaluation Framework. (2016). Manila: Philippine Commission on Women.

³ Schalkwyk, et al. (1996) as cited in Innes, Melissa. (Ed.) (2000). Accelerating Change: Resources for Gender Mainstreaming. Quebec: Canadian International Development Agency.