GENDER EQUALITY RESOURCE CENTER INC.

The Gender Equality Resource Center (GERC) Inc. was established in 2013 and registered in 2014 as a non-government organization (NGO) with the Philippines’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). GERC Inc. aims at promoting gender equality (GE) for development in and through cooperatives.

As a national advocacy group and training organization, at the core of the GERC Inc. are volunteers—GE and co-op advocates, and development facilitators and trainers—who work in and through co-ops and other private and government agencies to pursue: 

• co-op development—specifically, to help heighten the social impact of cooperatives and other community enterprises in the Philippines, and to develop capacities of cooperatives in entrepreneurship
• women empowerment
• GE.

GERC Inc. was formed by the Asian Women in Cooperative Development Forum (AWCF) so as to improve focus and strengthen efforts on GE in Philippine co-ops. AWCF itself was organized in 1990 as a regional (Asia) body by national co-op organizations and co-op-supporting organizations from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Philippines (later joined by similar organizations from Cambodia and Vietnam). These organizations formed AWCF as they became aware of the gender issues in co-ops and of the need to address these issues.

GERC Inc. partners with co-ops, NGOs, local government units (LGUs), co-op development councils, government agencies, and other groups in implementing GE and co-op development activities. It likewise works with co-ops and other private and government agencies that may seek its technical assistance in GE and co-op development. GERC Inc.'s services are training and capacity-building, and consultancy. These services are conducted nationwide.

Assisting Philippine co-ops to mainstream GAD
With a Memorandum of Agreement signed in January 2016, GERC Inc. has an ongoing partnership with the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), the Philippines’s lead government agency tasked for co-op development. Among CDA’s thrusts for co-op development is supporting the mainstreaming of GAD in co-ops. GERC Inc. provides technical assistance to CDA as it works toward this thrust. GERC Inc.’s linkage with CDA is a continuation of the earlier partnership between AWCF and CDA of which among the major results are:

1. AWCF’s participation in the  technical working group (TWG) that was led by CDA to craft Memorandum Circular (MC) 2013-22 or the “Guidelines on Mainstreaming GAD in Cooperatives” issued in 2013. GERC also sat in the TWG that was likewise led by CDA to come up with MC 2017-04 or the "Tool for Assessing Progress of Gender Equality in Primary Cooperatives as Supplemental to Memorandum Circular 2013-22" issued in 2017.
   
   
2. AWCF and CDA co-organized the first-ever “National Summit on Gender and Development (GAD) in Cooperatives” held in March 2014 in Subic Bay, PH. In March 2016, the second Summit was held in Baguio City, PH, co-organized by CDA and GERC Inc., in partnership with AWCF.  In April 2018 in Cebu City, PH, CDA and GERC Inc. held the third Summit. All these Summits had many participants from co-ops and other private development agencies, and local and national government agencies nationwide and numerous speakers on GAD, co-ops, and related development topics. The Summits also created declarations and calls for action on the urgent need for Philippine co-ops to mainstream GAD so that they will enjoy the social and economic benefits of being gender-fair organizations.  

MC No. 2013-22 aims at disseminating to co-ops the GAD mandate of the Philippine government so as to ensure the promotion of GE and the institutionalization of GAD in policies, programs, and other activities in co-ops. CDA’s inspiration and desire to formulate MC 2013-22 are rooted in the declarations and calls for action earlier made by co-ops (even before the first GAD in co-ops Summit in 2014) from different parts of the Philippines for this government agency to take strong and positive steps that will enable co-ops to become gender-aware. Consequently, the gender-awareness of co-ops will cause them to adopt and implement gender-sensitive actions to benefit their organizations and the women and men in the membership. These earlier declarations and calls for action were affirmed by co-ops prior to being sent to CDA. Many of these co-ops had previously participated in AWCF’s GE projects in the Philippines. Through these projects, the co-ops became gender-fair organizations. These co-ops are among the leading and well-known cooperatives in the country.

MC No. 2017-22 aims at disseminating to co-ops the tool for assessing their progress in mainstreaming GAD toward achieving GE.