If you ask if the office deals with gender, the quick answer is yes. We have a gender desk, gender officers, gender reports. But that’s it. It’s not proactive. – PH1
An interview with PH3 explained that the Headquarters usually provides the Philippines office with a certain level of autonomy and flexibility with regards to implementing policies and internal processes. According to PH3, Headquarters will always have a “mother” policy disseminated to its overseas offices, and overseas offices can modify it based on the laws and culture of the partner country. PH3 further clarified:
“Since JICA is a bilateral agency, the governments of Japan and Philippines’ laws are both applicable to JICA Philippines. Yet if there are any conflicting laws/guidelines, prevailing laws in the Philippines will be followed instead… The policies in JICA Philippines is based on the Philippines and Japan’s policies, and we strive for a win- win situation.”
However, JICA’s gender mainstreaming policy is only applied to the project formulation level done within the Headquarters. Hence, it reaches overseas offices in a limited manner, but can be complemented if the partner country imposes a policy on gender mainstreaming. This way,
together with the autonomy given by Headquarters, overseas offices such as the Philippines can easily formulate and implement their own gender mainstreaming policy. PH3 stated:
“I don’t see any problems if Philippines office would propose to have its own gender mainstreaming policy. It is one of the boxes that needs to be ticked in the forms, so why would they (Headquarters) say no?”
The importance of JICA Philippines having its own gender mainstreaming policy was also underscored by PH1, who stated:
“The supervisors and administration should set the tone and the guideline. They should mandate but also provide information to officers to ensure that they do this task.”
Officers’ work on gender
As previously discussed, the gender officers in the Philippines office only have two main tasks: attendance at ODA gender network meetings and submission of gender toolkit results of JICA projects. These responsibilities are currently assigned to the coordination section, which is composed of programme officers from different groups in the office. Hence, the officers involved in the coordination section have their main responsibilities with another primary section that they belong to (i.e. handling loan or technical cooperation projects), which makes being involved in the coordination section an additional task.
According to PH1, the main function of the coordination section is to act as a liaison between the Philippine counterparts and JICA Headquarters. Their work includes organising advisory committee and portfolio review meetings, which specifically focus on the development of JICA’s country assistance programs in the Philippines. PH1 underscored that with this organisational structure and the extent of work on gender, it is appropriate to assign gender to the coordination section. Commenting on the work load, PH1 elaborates:
“We have to multitask on jobs which may not necessarily be difficult, but time consuming.”
While gender work in the Philippines office does not usually go beyond coordination, PH2 still noted JICA’s weak participation in the ODA gender network:
“I can say that we have poor performance and contribution within the network. Yes, we attend the meetings regularly, but we are not active in terms of participating and initiating any gender-related activities like symposiums and events.”
PH3 also commented on the extent of work carried out by the gender officers. Referring to the two sole tasks, PH3 noted:
“I think this is a shallow effort, we do not really implement the true essence of being gender responsive.”
A high turnover of the gender work to various officers was also noted. PH1, who served as the main gender officer for a couple of months, was told that since there were not enough human resources, PH1 should just focus on the two main tasks and was discouraged from pursuing other initiatives related to gender. PH2, upon entering JICA almost a year ago, succeeded PH1’s gender tasks. When asked if s/he had any idea on why it was handed to PH2:
“I just took over the responsibilities of the staff I succeeded, including the projects she was in charge of and the gender work she handled.”
Hence, gender assignments are not based on the officer’s competency and knowledge on gender issues, it was solely because it was part of the turned-over responsibilities from the previous staff.
Given that work on gender is limited to coordination and liaison functions, PH1 suggested that if JICA wants to mainstream gender effectively in its operations, then all programme officers should know how to perceive their project from a gender angle. According to PH1:
“As a programme officer, we handle all dimensions of the project except planning and formulation. This includes recognising environmental and social considerations. If we want to include gender, all officers involved in the operations must have a certain level of gender awareness in order to mainstream it properly in their projects.”
On a related note, PH1 thought that gender can be applied through various funding schemes, sectors of assistance, and stages of the project:
“Yes, it is applicable even to yen loan and infrastructure projects. In Ex-Ante Evaluation, there is a question as simple as ‘Were there any impacts related to gender?’ It’s basic, but at least it’s not absent. While not in-depth, it makes the programme officer