The 2023 Sex Disaggregated Water Data Survey (SDWDS) was officially launched on November 10, with the ceremonial signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the University of the Philippines Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (UP CWGS) and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System Regulatory Office (MWSS RO).
The SDWDS project is a collaboration between the UP CWGS and the MWSS RO, intended to promote gender equality and women empowerment by integrating a Gender and Development (GAD) perspective in all its programs, policies, and activities, through enabling mechanisms that institutionalize gender mainstreaming to ensure equal opportunities and participation for both sexes.
The UP CWGS and the MWSS RO are jointly conducting the 2023 SDWDS project as the basis for planning, budgeting, programming, and policy formulation of the Gender and Development Focal Point System. According to the project brief, the objectives of the project are: to gather baseline information on the basic water statistics in the Concession Area covering Metro Manila and parts of Cavite and Rizal; to produce survey design and survey instruments for use in the study; and to produce data that is gender-sensitive for use in the planning, budgeting, programming, and policy formulation of the MWSS RO and to assess how policies and programs on water have different impacts on women and men, and girls and boys.
Notable attendees of the MOA signing are UP Executive Vice President Jose Fernando Alcantara, MWSS Chief Regulator Patrick Lester, and UPCWGS Director Marie Aubrey J. Villaceran.
