A two-day workshop on Mainstreaming Gender in the Organization was organized by the Mekong River Commission Secretariat with partial funding support from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) / the Embassy of Sweden on the 12 and 13October. A training team from Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resources Management (WOCAN) conducted the workshop.
A total of 30 participants from four country- level National Mekong River Commissions, technical staff from the Mekong River Commission Secretariat, gender and communications advisers from GIZ, SIDA and Oxfam attended the workshop.
The objectives of the workshop were two-fold:
(1) To mobilize support and seek feedback from country member participants on the gender action plan developed by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Secretariat
(2) To develop and/or improve the individual country/NMCS gender action plans that are consistent with the gender action plan of the MRC
During the two-day (s) workshop, participants were introduced to key gender mainstreaming concepts and an organizational framework to assess their own organizations, and individual country action plans based on the activities of the existing MRC Gender Action Plan.
Individual country action plans for gender mainstreaming were developed around four major themes:
• Enhancing Technical Capacity for Gender
• Promoting Accountability
• Generating commitment from leadership and management
• Enhancing organizational culture for enabling gender equality
