As the incumbent President of the ASEAN Confederation on Women’s Organizations (ACWO), I advocated the inclusion of this statement to ensure women’s integration in policies, programs and projects of ASEAN governments. Our small victory in incorporating women’s agenda in the said Declaration shall pave the way for promoting women’s advancement and empowerment at the ASEAN level. The ACWO can proudly claim ownership of the paragraph but the ownership has an equivalent level of responsibility and commitment.

We took the lead in convincing the ASEAN leaders to recognize the role that women can play in society and, given the venue for maximizing their involvement in community building processes, the significant contribution they can make to regional growth and development. The challenge is for us to prove women’s worth as economic contributors, in addition to our multiple roles as household managers, budget officers, child bearers and caretakers. The challenge is for us to make our presence relevant through adopting Womenomics as our rallying call for ASEAN women leaders. ASEAN women should join forces to make Womenomics an integral part of their professional and personal life thus proving that Womenomics can bring about change in the global and regional spheres.

Womenomics is the combination of the words "women" and "economics." It is a new international word coined by economists during an international conference of economists held sometime last year. Upon analysis of the facts and figures related to women’s contributions to global economic performance, economists realized the need to recognize women as a powerful engine of economic growth; hence, the coinage.

Womenomics is both a tool and a strategy to achieve economic growth. It means giving economic value to women’s contributions, a global recognition that should be disseminated to women of the world so that they will all be inspired to contribute their share in improving their society.

An article in The Economist dated April 12, 2006 entitled "A Guide to Womenomics" stated that "the future of the world economy lies increasingly in female hands." The article emphasized that "women are becoming more important in the global marketplace: not just workers, but also consumers, entrepreneurs, managers and investors. Women have traditionally done most of the household shopping but now they have more money of their own to spend. Surveys suggest that women make 80 percent of consumer buying decisions – from health care and homes, to furniture and food. Women are now the most powerful engine of global growth."

The article summarized how women worldwide were able to contribute to their country’s Gross National Product in spite of the fact that they are still exposed to unfavorable home and work environments such as double-burden, sex-stereotyping, discrimination, sexual harassment and domestic violence.

In the Philippines, the Department of Trade and Industry has started categorizing their data on Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) by gender starting in 2003. During the first semester of 2005, the Bureau of Domestic Trade of DTI reported that 47 percent or 77,877 out of 166,445 businesses name women as their main registrants. Only 42 percent of business registrants were run by men while the remaining 11 percent were registered as partnerships, corporations and cooperatives.

These figures involve only businesses with permits to operate. The micro-enterprises being operated by members of the informal sector are not included in the data. Based on some studies, a majority of these micro-enterprises are being managed by women.

Just like in other countries, womenomics in the Philippines is critical in our country’s economic recovery. If women are provided with the necessary support mechanisms such as capital generation assistance, training, market and technology, they can prove that they are effective and efficient contributors to our GNP.

Poverty alleviation is a global concern. It is being addressed worldwide by adopting international instruments that are expected to be translated into policies, programs and projects among stakeholders in different countries.

Fundamental to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is the alleviation of poverty and extreme hunger. The MDG reaffirmed the primacy of poverty alleviation and gender equality as development goals. It also identified the need for more analysis of the impact of globalization on women’s economic status.

Many actions are recommended to promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions, and control over economic resources.

Hence, the MDG is a common framework for internationallyagreed goals and states that the "equal rights and opportunities of women and men must be assured." States resolved to promote gender equality and empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger, and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable.

Womenomics can be considered as a benchmark of women’s empowerment. It serves as the driving force for women to empower themselves so that they can effectively contribute to economic development. It can be their starting point, their first step to their selfempowerment because of their determination to be counted as one among the economic engines of the world.

Womenomics can also be the end-goal of women’s empowerment. Women’s empowerment is a process. It is a continuing initiative to improve women’s capacity to articulate their needs and to continuously enhance their talents and potentials in order to become productive members of society. Through womenomics, empowered women will be able to relate themselves with the global targets because they believe that they are an integral part of their country’s economic development.

For womenomics to take off, women must be empowered. If womenomics means giving economic value to women’s contributions in the global economy, their value potentials must be developed and maximized. Empowerment is a pre-requisite of womenomics. Women must be empowered so that they can actively contribute to economic development.

On the other hand, womenomics is a development tool that will lead to women’s empowerment and this empowerment shall serve as a challenge for women to pursue their roles in womenomics.

As a development mechanism, womenomics requires the following support:

* For stakeholders to meet the targets of the MDG, BPFA and CEDAW must intensify implementation of strategies to address the concerns of women in their respective sectors.

* Women non-government organizations (NGOs) and civil society must continue advocating the creation of policies or effective implementation of existing policies on women.

* Research institutes should conduct a study on womenomics in order to quantify the economic contributions of women to their families, country, and the world.

* Women’s access to ICT must be improved, especially in remote areas so that they can significantly contribute to womenomics initiatives both as agents and targets of change.

* Educational institutions should create awareness among students about the importance of womenomics in order to promote gender equality at an early stage.

* NGOs should undertake capacity building initiatives for women, especially women entrepreneurs.

As members of the global society, ASEAN women must be able to participate actively in all fields of community building processes through provision of full access to development interventions.

As a tool to address the poverty situation in the ASEAN region, a Womenomics Development Framework was conceptualized and will be translated into concrete action through the initiative of ACWO member councils.

1. Women’s Integration in the Digital Economy which consists of:

(a.) ASEAN Women’s Portal

The proposed ASEAN Women’s Portal is a powerful tool to disseminate information on various resources and services worldwide, transact e-commerce/e-business, facilitate exchange of ideas and perspectives and build the e-community of gender and ICT advocates. The portal shall cover information on the ten ASEAN member countries and will include ASEAN Plus Three such as China, Korea and Japan as extension members.

The interactive portal is envisioned to serve as the hub of ASEAN women’s interaction with their partners in the global society. It shall serve as the venue for disseminating news and current events on gender and ICT initiatives of various governments and women non-government organizations. Search engines, fora, e-mail and links to other websites shall also be covered by the portal. Users of the portal can have online discussions, maintain blogs or email using the link to the preferred email application software.

(b.) e-Learning/ Capacity-Building

ACWO shall undertake capacity building activities for ASEAN women to be implemented by national councils in ten countries. The learning materials shall be provided through securing grants from donor agencies. Handy Guide Series and training modules shall be developed for dissemination to affiliates of national councils.

(c.) Advocacy of Gender-Sensitive ICT Policies

Based on studies and recommendations during various conferences, ICT policies and programs are not gender-sensitive. Since ICT is considered a technical matter, most of the ICT policy makers are male. The issue of the gender digital divide does not focus only on access to infrastructure, training, and applications but also to existing policies on ICT. Policy makers do not consider gender as a priority concern. Thus, ACWO intends to empower women to become advocates of gender-sensitive ICT policies by providing information on the strategies and approaches that can be adopted in dealing with ICT policy makers. Cyber advocacy shall be the approach to massively disseminate information on the policy issues and success stories of gender and ICT advocates.

II. Women’s Electronics Business Center – Through partnership with the Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center (APWINC ), the We-Biz Centers will be established in selected pilot areas.

III. Women Entrepreneurship – This will consist of two initiatives:

(a.) Entrepreneurship training for women micro-entrepreneurs in order to professionalize their business operations.

(b.) Micro-finance for women engaged in micro-businesses.

The globalization trend is fastmoving. The ICT Superhighway is also moving twice or more than what we expect. We are now moving into a ubiquitous computing revolution. The ubiquitous (U) revolution is the computing environment, where anyone can access ICT anytime and anywhere. The current e-Community is becoming U-World through ICT.

In this Forum, we are introducing new jargon but not new concepts. Women’s contributions to economic development are not new to us but Womenomics is new to most of us.

The world economists believe that women constitute a powerful economic engine and so they coined the word Womenomics. They have high expectations and aspirations for global women. Do we also have that kind of aspiration for ASEAN Women?

I would like to end by saying that Womenomics is an exciting development challenge for women. Is it really a feasible and sustainable strategy to address our own women’s agenda? We can answer this question positively if we will work hard. That is now my challenge for all of you.