PCW hosts Session on Gender Statistics at the 11th National Convention of Statistics
Philippine Commission on Women hosts the Session on Gender Statistics at the 11th National Convention on Statistics at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel, Mandaluyong City, on October 5, 2010. Organized by the Philippine Statistical System, the 11th NCS is a triennial convention that features statistical paper presentations and discussions on topics addressing current national and global concerns. The Convention, held at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel from October 4-5, 2010, coincides with the opening ceremonies of the National Statistics Month.
The Session on Gender and Statistics featured two technical papers themed on women economic empowerment: Baseline Study on Women Microentrepreneur (WME) and Women Workers in the Microenterprise (WWME) in Real, Infanta and Gen. Nakar (ReiNa), Quezon presented by the Quezon GREAT Women Project Team and Improving the Way We Measure the Increasing Contribution of Women in Nation-Building by Dr. Romulo Virola et. al. of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB). The Session was moderated by PCW Executive Director Emmeline Verzosa.
The Quezon Baseline Study Research Team aimed to encourage government to guide, plan and implement relevant programs for microentrepreneurs, and for the statistical agencies to generate sex-disaggregated data and statistics on women’s enterprise development and economic empowerment.
The team leader, Assistant Professor Leila Africa of the University of the Philippines in Los Banos, called to “professionalize, register and organize women microentrepreneurs.”
“Statistics that determine the value of women microenterpises’ contribution to the local economy is highly needed, because they lead LGUs to redirect interventions and resources to the actual propellers of the local economy,” says GWP-Infanta Focal Person Armida Marquez. Marquez spoke for a Team of Quezon reactors, who pushed for statistical data and findings that can be used in improving LGU plans, programs and services towards local economic development and women economic empowerment. Other reactors from Quezon were Provincial Gender and Development Office Head Ofel Palayan, NGO representative Nellibeth Mercado and Local Area Coordinator Conrado Vargas.
OIC Director Jessamyn Encarnacion of the NSCB presented the second paper and raised the importance of estimating the value of the unpaid work to the national economy, both by women and men, and recommended the conduct of a National Time-Use Survey. Dean Amaryllis Torres of the UP College of Social Work and Community Development, the paper discussant, stressed the inclusion of other forms of unpaid work mostly done by women such as community/volunteer work, backyard gardening and animal raising to value women’s contribution to the national economy.
