Opening Remarks

Ms. Sisomboun Ounavong, Director General

Department of International Cooperation
Workshop on Gender Action Plan Monitoring
16 July 2014, Lao Plaza, Vientiane.

- Ms. Sandra Nicoll, Country Director, ADB Lao Resident Mission
- Representatives of line ministries concerned
- Project Directors
- Ladies and Gentlemen


Today, on behalf of the Department of International Cooperation,
MPI, I am honored to chair this Workshop and pleased to welcome
you all to Gender Action Plan Monitoring Workshop. I personally
believe that this workshop will substantially contribute to improve
and enhance capacity of project executing and implementing
agencies in achieving gender mainstreaming in the project
development objectives. Gender Equality is included in the draft
expected outcomes for the 8
th
National Social and Economic
Development Plan. In practical, the Government institution
improvement has included Advanced Woman Division in each
ministry cabinet, aiming to increase and enhance the roles of
woman in decision making process as well as in the development
process.

I am admitted that the gender mainstreaming is not an activity
which can be achieve over night or within a short period of time. It
requires inputs and contributions of both human and financial
resources. As you may aware that we have a limitation of
knowledgeable persons on developing a comprehensive gender
action plan as well as the capability to implement and understand

The views expressed in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of
Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of
their use. The countries listed in this paper do not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

requirements of existing gender action plan as reflecting in setting
unrealistic and too ambitious indicator to achieve. Therefore; we,
ADB and MPI, organize this workshop aiming to share experience
and to provide guidance for implementing project gender action
plan and reporting progress of gender action plan implementation.

Ladies and Gentlemen

On this opportunity, I would like to ask all EAs and IAs, especially,
the project directors to be aware that:
- Firstly, Project gender action plan is contributed to achieve
project's objective
- Secondly, Project gender action plan is agreement between
govt. of Lao PDR and ADB therefore, project management team
have to implement it.
- Thirdly, Project manager have to aware that what is gender
requirement of his/her project (How many gender indicators)
- Fourthly, Project gender consultant have to lead project
management team to implement project gender action plan,
and
- Finally, M&E officer have to incorporate gender indicators into
project M&E system

Therefore, I would like to encourage all of us to take this is a good
opportunity to gain expertise and share your experiences on how to
better improve and implement your gender action plan with your
colleagues and projects gender consultants which I personally
believe that we can achieve and improve our gender action plan
implementation and targets after this full-day workshop.

On this occasion, may I take this opportunity on behalf of the
Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Planning and
Investment, to express my sincere thanks to you for your
participation in this workshop. Special thanks go to ADB Lao
Resident Mission for supporting and co-organizing this workshop
and wish all of you a good health and have a fruitful workshop.
Thank you!