To initiate gender interventions at all level, the National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) are training focal persons from different agencies.
Over 16 gender officials and focal persons have been trained under the Technical Cooperation Project. And seven officials have been trained under the Knowledge Co-Creation Program initiated by JICA and NCWC since 2016.
The three years, the country focused program is aimed at capacity building of government officials, rural women on gender mainstreaming and empowerment of women.
Nine more officials were also later offered similar training courses in Japan. They were trained on gender mainstreaming policies for government officers, gender and diversity in disaster risk reduction and empowerment of rural women.
“The project came at a time when we had many new officials at the commission, at the secretariat. So we were able to train these officers have to a basic course on gender mainstreaming so that they understand the concepts and the gender mainstreaming techniques,” Kunzang Lhamu, the Director of NCWC, said.
She added officials who were trained have been able to implement what they learned.
“As a part of the training program, each officer has an action plan that they need to report and follow up on. So this has helped us to put some very good interventions in place.”
According to officials, they have been able to mainstream gender and child interventions in national policies, develop a gender indicator handbook, conduct advocacy in the community and monastic institutions, carry out nutritional screening and equity profile on early marriages.
At the seminar, JICA also presented their Strategy and Efforts for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the future.
