The top five GAD agenda to be prioritized by the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) for the next six years were the results of the Agenda ni Juana Crowdsourcing, an initiative of the PCW which was conducted manually and online during the “Sama-samang Pagsulong sa Mga Agenda ni Juana” last year. The participants in the survey were asked to select five issues that need to be resolved. The five issues that garnered the most votes are:

1) Improved education, awareness-raising, and women’s participation in gender-responsive climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction towards building resilient communities (5,821 votes)

2) Improved access to justice of victims of abuse and violence, especially women and girls with disabilities and other vulnerable groups (5,122 votes)

3) Expanded access to affordable comprehensive women’s health care and services (4,053 votes)

4) Improved access to land, water, capital, markets, and enterprise technologies in rural and urban areas (3,488 votes)

5) Improved information dissemination on government programs and services for realizing gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and their human rights (3,297 votes)

Improving protective and welfare assistance for distressed female migrant workers came next, proceeded by improving convergence of efforts in building peaceful, safe and violence-free communities. Ranking 8^th and 9^th, respectively, are increasing women’s participation and leadership in decision-making positions; and strengthening social protection for workers in the informal economy and other vulnerable groups.

This crowdsourcing activity provided the public, in general an avenue to voice their views on the issues most important to them. Though the survey has its limitations, it is an effective way to engage the public stakeholders in GAD concerns and the government to be informed about the issues to be prioritized in programs for women.

Employees of the PFDA Central Office and Navotas Fish Port Complex participated in this event, joining a total of 8,005 respondents from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. (Au DC Atanacio)