Through the advocacy of Administrator Diony A. Ventura to support gender and development (GAD) programs in the agency, NAMRIA conducted a workshop on Harmonized GAD held on 25-26 June 2008 at the Lecture Hall. Eighteen employees from the different departments participated in the event which aimed to review existing GAD guidelines to ensure that GAD principles are mainstreamed in the workplace.

Mainstreaming is the main strategy for ensuring that the government pursues gender equality in all aspects of the development process to achieve the vision of a gender-responsive society where women and men equally contribute to and benefit from development.

During the workshop, participants were familiarized with the background and rationale of the Harmonized GAD guidelines. The guidelines are divided into three modules, namely: project development and design, project implementation and management, and project monitoring and evaluation.

Ms. Carina A. Santos of the NAMRIA Human Resource and Development Unit headed the training secretariat while Ms.Monette S. Santos of the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau acted as the resource person of the workshop.