Co-ops give update for GE Project

On July 25-26, 2012 in Antipolo City, Philippines, the Asian Women in Co-operative Development Forum (AWCF) convened the “Third Monitoring Forum” of the "Promoting Gender Equality Among Philippine Co-operatives" Project. AWCF is implementing the Project (2010-2012) under the “Advancing Civic Capacities for Effective and Sustainable Services to the Poor (ACCESS to the Poor),” which is the country program for the Philippines of the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC), with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

Representatives of the 15 Philippine co-ops taking part in the AWCF-SCC Project attended the Monitoring Forum. They presented updates of the Project’s implementation in their respective organizations. The co-ops were represented by their General Managers/Chief Executive Officers, Board Chairpersons/Directors, Chairpersons/Members of their GE Committee, and some Gender Focal Persons (GFPs) (31 co-op representatives: 21 women and 10 men). Also present at the event, upon invitation by the AWCF, were the SCC Philippine Country Director Ms Anneli Leina (who was to leave her office in early August 2012), Ms Jessica Soto (Ms Leina’s successor), and Administrative staff Mr. Jun Gandingan. Representing the AWCF Secretariat were Officer in Charge (OIC) Ms Salome Ganibe, AWCF-SCC Project Manager Ms Emma Nieva, and Project Assistant, Ms Teresa Saliendra. Some of AWCF’s consultants were also present in the Monitoring Forum. 

The GE Project 
AWCF’s Gender Equality (GE) Project with SCC began with the signing in April 2010 of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the 15 co-ops and the AWCF to work for the Project Objective of strengthening local capacities and creating favourable policies for the promotion of GE among these co-ops, located in the country’s Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao regions. From thereon, AWCF and the 15 co-ops together engaged in interventions related to human resource capacity-building; strengthening of plans, systems, and structures; research and policy advocacy; and project planning, monitoring and evaluation/capacity-building. Through these interventions, the Project intended to solidify the gender-related services and advocacies to be systematically offered to and participated in by co-ops. In turn, the co-ops were expected to be assisted in their transformation into being gender-fair co-ops and gender-fair workplaces. And being gender-fair, the co-ops were hoped to more effectively implement gender-related activities that will enable the promotion and practice of GE in the organizational areas of people, policies, systems, and structure.  


Talking about accomplishments

Before the 15 co-ops had their turn in reporting to the body the progress of their GE-related activities for the past 12 months, Ms Nieva gave a summing up or overview of the accomplishments of the Project since January 2012. She gave the following Project highlights:

• the 15 co-ops’ aggressive promotion of GE in their organization, with the coordination of AWCF in some activities, resulted in significant increase in the awareness on GE, and more positive perception by the co-ops’ leadership and management with regard to addressing the needs and rights of the members
• the 15 co-ops’ positive actions toward formulating and implementing gender-responsive and gender-fair policies/practices have brought forth these key results in the co-ops: formulated GE vision, mission, goals, and objectives; improved organizational structure, personnel policies (including GE-enhanced human resource policy manual, and GE manual); and improved services to address the needs of women and men members
• as to the quantitative indicators aimed at by AWCF’s GE Project, which are number of women-officers in the boards of these co-ops increased by 20%; at least 50% of these co-ops’ staff are women; and number of women members in these co-ops increased by 20%, the following results were achieved, so far, by the 15 co-ops (see Table 1 below):

• the Project capacitated the co-ops to prepare policies to ensure that women and men are always represented in the leadership: the increase in women’s number in the BOD composition indicates that women are given more opportunity to become leaders and to take part in the co-ops’ decision-making process
• the co-ops were able to identify a total of 15 GFPs, 15 alternate GFPs, and 35 gender role models/advocates, all of whom have undergone orientation on GE as the Project was able to help them be gender-sensitive; be capacitated to develop their own co-ops’ gender training modules and materials; and, most importantly, be trainers able to conduct GE-related training
• 10,816 participants from the 15 co-ops participated in 24 different roll-out GE- related training conducted by these co-ops’ GE Committee, GFPs, and gender role models/advocates
• the co-ops formed and instituted their GE programs; prepared their GE training modules; and integrated GE learning/sessions in their regularly conducted pre-membership education seminars for prospective members, and in their ownership seminars and other activities for members
• as indicated in record sheets of the 15 co-ops compared to results of the baseline study that AWCF had conducted among them at the start of the Project, these co-ops overall greatly improved in their efforts to mainstream gender in their organizations.

Challenges remain
Ms Nieva also stated the challenges that the 15 co-ops and also AWCF are facing in their gender journey, in relation to the Project and even beyond. Some of these challenges are:

• intensive learning for the co-ops on setting up in their organizations a project implementation, monitoring, and evaluation (PIME) system for GE
• need for the co-ops to train more GE trainers to reach the big number of membership
• need for the co-ops to have continuous gender-sensitizing activities/training, especially for incoming/new officers because leaders change periodically in co-ops; the same activities/training should also be given to staff/new staff
• need to address rural women’s demands on addressing their lack of knowledge and skills on business and enterprise development as well as on other livelihood projects, and developing these into family enterprises.

  
Co-ops update on progress
The aforementioned accomplishments for the GE Project reported by Ms Nieva found validation in the updates given later by the 15 co-ops’ representatives in the Monitoring Forum for their Project-related activities. In acknowledging the reports that lasted the whole two days of the Forum, Ms Ganibe underscored to the body the highlights of the co-ops’ presentations as the additional notable major accomplishments of the GE Project, such as:

• the growth of the co-ops in their ranking from having low scores (or even “zero” for some co-ops) in the GE rapid assessment survey conducted among them at the Project’s start—currently, (in the Project’s third year) the co-ops have moderate to almost full ranking in the different components of the assessment survey. The improvement in ranking comes from the efforts of the co-ops themselves aside from the personal efforts given by the co-operators who have undergone the different capacity-building activities of the Project (directly or in roll-out activities/training).
• the co-ops are now enlarging their GE advocacy as they reach out to even more members, and even extending and sharing their GE expertise with other organizations like local government units (LGUs) and non-government organizations (NGOs), among other organizations
• with the budget for GE having been approved by the co-ops’ Boards, the co-ops are doing many more gender-related activities such as continuing the GE education given to much more numbers of members
• the co-ops, in general, have put in place the appropriate systems to enable their GE program’s sustainability and continuity. As such, the GE program will continue to exist despite certain factors that may otherwise affect it such as leadership and staff changes. For instance, a co-op’s GE Committee has been made in-charge of the GE program, and the GE Committee has been made a standing committee of the co-op; a co-op’s GE resource center (or GERC, with the GE program operating with it) has been put under the Business Development Services (BDS) of the co-op, with the BDS being part of the co-op’s structure; or a co-op has tasked its Human Resource Department to take care of the GE program. These are just some of the ways by which the 15 co-ops have institutionalized the GE program/advocacy in their organizations.
• the co-ops’ clear delineation in their structures/systems of their GE Committee, GFPs, and gender models/advocates have helped strengthen their GE resource services. Furthermore, a number of these co-ops have leveled up by starting to establish their GERC, after securing their Boards’ approval of their GERC’s plan and budget (Note: The co-ops’ establishment of the GERC or, at least, the strengthening of the co-ops’ GE resource services, was discussed during a national forum on the GERC that had been held by the 15 co-ops, as organized by the AWCF in line with the GE Project’s objectives, in June 2012 in Cebu.)
• whereas there was not even a mention of the co-ops’ possible linking up with LGUs when the AWCF GE Project was just starting in 2010, now some of the co-ops have established partnership with their LGUs. For instance, the LGUs are now tapping a number of these co-ops as GE experts who render GE services, such as by being the LGUs’ trainers or resource speakers. The co-ops may not be earning largely from their partnership with the LGUs at this point, but the benefits for the co-ops from this partnership are manifold. With the co-ops’ additional experience and exposure gained from working together with the LGUs, they further firm up their reputation as both co-op and GE experts. Also, with the co-ops’ tie-up with the LGUs (which are mandated to have a gender budget), they are able to conduct GE training in different barangays (villages) that give them more opportunities to reach the co-op members as well gain more members.
• in relation to being tapped as GE experts by LGUs and other organizations, the co-ops have gained recognition and awards for their expertise
• the 15 co-ops, located in different areas of the Philippines, have established “friendships” among themselves as they share learning, experience, and efforts in helping and supporting one another in simple GE-related partnerships (e.g., conducting GE activities)
• one of the manifestations of the increased importance given by the co-ops to GE is their development and offering of products/services accessible to both women and men members, even if these products/services were initially offered to women only. Thus the co-ops have become gender-fair by giving access to both sexes to these products/services. For some of the co-ops, this situation has even led to the increased number of both women and men membership.
• the co-ops have also shown in a variety of ways that the BDS and GERC within their organizations can be integrated together to maximize social and economic benefits for both co-ops and members (e.g., integrating GE education in the members’ activities like livelihood training and loan seminars) (and which also puts to fore the co-ops’ “corporate social responsibility”)
• with all their commitment, activities, experience, expertise, and recognition gained in and through GE, the 15 co-ops are now able to proudly say that they are “GE Champions” in the Philippine co-op movement.

Ms Ganibe also commended the co-ops for the quality of their reporting in the Monitoring Forum. She said that the co-ops’ Powerpoint, video, live storytelling, and narrative reports in the Forum had shown how they apply to their GE advocacy the learning shared with them in the capacity-building seminars (e.g., trainers’ training) conducted through the GE Project. 


Joint activities  
The Monitoring Forum ended with discussions between AWCF and the 15 co-ops on their remaining joint activities of the Project for 2012 as well as on the continued promotion and establishment of the GERC among the co-ops and also with other co-ops in the Philippines. SCC’s Ms Leina expressed her organization’s continuing support to the co-ops for their GE endeavors.

The 15 partner-co-ops in the AWCF-SCC Project for GE are (Luzon) Abra Diocesan Teachers and Employees Multi-Purpose Cooperative (MPC); Ligas Kooperatiba ng  Bayan sa Pagpapaunlad; Nueva Segovia Consortium of Cooperatives; St. Martin of Tours Credit and Development Cooperative; and Sacred Heart Credit and Development Cooperative; (Visayas) Don Bosco Network MPC; Cordova MPC; Dumanjug MPC; Lamac MPC; and Metro Ormoc Community Cooperative; and (Mindanao) Mindanao State University–Iligan Institute of Technology MPC; Paglaum MPC; Panabo MPC; Pantukan Chess Club Cooperative; and Tagum Cooperative.