Making women and men matter: the Philippine POPCOM experience

To reorient population policies and programs and make population workers more gender-responsive was the challenge faced by the Philippine Population Commission (POPCOM), the government's central policymaking and coordinating body for population concerns. This paper traces the history of population policies in the Philippines and describes the factors that helped create a climate conducive to a rethinking of POPCOM's policies. POPCOM first conducted an institutional assessment to determine the levels of awareness of its population officers about gender, reproductive health, and population and development issues. A gender-responsive population policy framework with a reproductive health perspective was then developed to guide training programs, information management strategies, and pilot community-based action research programs. Problems anticipated in integrating a gender and reproductive health perspective include the Catholic Church, different priorities of government, and a reluctant Congress. Suggested strategies are (a) formation of a critical mass of various groups to demand policy shifts; (b) for women, development, and environment nongovernmental organizations to identify allies in government and international organizations; (c) regular dialogues between donors and the government's central planning agency; and (d) working through the media.