On 22 March 2023, MWSS Regulatory Office (RO) Deputy Administrator for Administration and Legal Affairs (DA-ALA), and Chairperson of the Gender and Development Focal Point System Claudine B. Orocio-Isorena served as resource speaker at the United Nations (UN) 2023 Water Conference Flagship Event: Accelerating Women’s Inclusion in Water held in New York City, USA.
The session, which was organized by the Asian Development Bank and its partners, became an avenue where experts shared their insights on how to establish a universally acceptable baseline in monitoring progress and scaling up transformational practices for advancing women’s inclusion in water in Asia and the Pacific.
DA-ALA Orocio-Isorena emphasized the MWSS RO’s efforts in collecting sex-disaggregated data in relation to water and wastewater services for the purpose of raising public awareness on gender-related issues in the water sector as well as monitoring the Office’s progress in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 or Gender Equality and SDG 6 or Clean Water and Sanitation for All. She also pointed out the Office’s ongoing initiatives in engaging the public, especially the customers in the Concession Areas, in gender-inclusive programs and activities.
“We at the MWSS RO are committed towards closing the gender gap through the use of gender mainstreaming. In all our policies and programs, we see to it that we use the gender lens and make sure that everything is inclusive,” Orocio-Isorena shared.
The discussion also focused on addressing gender inequalities in the sector, including providing access to safely managed water and sanitation systems, improving decision-making on water resources, and implementing transformative practices in enhancing women’s leadership and participation in the water sector and in policymaking.
Meanwhile, MWSS RO Chief Regulator Patrick Lester N. Ty and DA for Customer Service Regulation (DA-CSRA) Lee Robert M. Britanico, were also part of the high-level officials representing the Philippines at the UN 2023 Water Conference. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga led the Philippine delegation in the said conference wherein other water regulators, sector experts, and stakeholders around the globe engaged in a knowledge exchange that was geared towards enhancing water service delivery, promoting water conservation, and improving regulatory frameworks.
Check out other international and local stakeholder engagements of the MWSS RO: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.339871998166742…
For more information about the MWSS RO, visit our website at https://ro.mwss.gov.ph