The Puerto Princesa City Water District is honored to welcome our guests from the Guiguinto Water District (GWD) as part of their “Lakbay-Aral” Gender and Development benchmarking activity. This activity allows us to share our best practices in formulating our GAD Agenda and Plan, create policies, and incorporate gender-responsive governance within the water service sector.

Our technical working group, Ms. Annalie P. Lagan and Ms. Nijar C. Tanaka, in our GAD Focal Point System facilitated the activity in our main office, presented our ongoing GAD programs, key accomplishments, and future initiatives, and shared our challenges in developing our GAD system. Discussion includes capacity-building activities, gender-sensitive policies integrated into our operations, attributed water infrastructure projects such as expansions, and aligned with IEC plans and programs.

GM Walter Laurel also shared our partnership with USAID in providing assistance to formulate and develop a comprehensive Gender and Development (GAD) strategic agenda which serves as a basis for creating annual programs, projects, and activities aligned with our annual budget over the next six years. This also serves as a guide for our agency to become a GAD-model institution in the water sector.

We are grateful to GWD for a fruitful discussion and engagement and look forward to continued collaboration and shared growth in GAD initiatives.