PCW develops training modules supporting value chain development
The GREAT Women Project sponsored a Training Module Development Workshop on Gender Analysis in Support of Value Chain Development for the Philippine Commission on Women technical officers. The workshop was held last December 6-8, 2010 at the Orchid Garden Suites in Malate, Manila. The training modules will be pilot-tested in selected sites of the GREAT Women Project.
Value chain is a chain of primary and support activities for an enterprise or groups of enterprises operating in a specific industry, whereas value chain development is a systematic approach to examine the value chain and identify various interventions to address gaps in the growth and development of its competitive advantage.
The activity aimed at exploring possible approaches to mainstream gender in the value chain. PCW intends to mainstream gender in women-dominated industries such as agribusiness and tourism, as well as introduce gender in the value chain of predominant enterprises in local government units.
Gender mainstreaming in value chain analysis currently builds on the tools developed by the Department of Trade and Industry-Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) tool “Value Links”, Oxfam’s “Women’s Economic Leadership” in agricultural markets, and the International Labor Organization’s “Strengthening Value Chain Links”.
The modules mainstreaming gender will aid PCW in its technical assistance to agencies and partners’ by helping them do a gender market map of the value chain of selected products. Proposed training modules target two sets of audiences: local government decision-makers, and enterprise enablers alongside women microentrepreneurs (WMEs).
The training module proposed for local government is geared at increasing local decisionmakers’ appreciation of gender-responsive value-chain development to local economic development and women’s economic empowerment, and skill-building on gender analysis of the value chain. The design for local enterprise enablers and WMEs is aimed at helping WMEs analyze growth potentials of their products and barriers to their enterprise. Aside from WMEs, government, sector representatives, business development service providers, traders and distributors will be empowered to understand their gender-responsive roles and contributions in strengthening links in the value chain to build competitive advantage of local enterprises.
Strengthening local enterprises, through gender-responsive value chain analysis, promotes the GREAT Women Project’s thrust of supporting local economic development for women’s economic empowerment and poverty alleviation.
