GESI SENSITIZATION AND MAINSTREAMING SESSION EYE OPENER FOR BPNG STAFF

Equity is about adding value or empowering others to equally participate and have access to whatever he or she needs, said Emmanuel Ginis – Gender Equity and Social Inclusion Policy Whole of Government Executive Manager when conducting the Sensitization and Mainstreaming Session for the Bank of Papua New Guinea staff recently.

“When male officers hear gender related trainings they associate it with females and they excuse themselves from it but gender is basically describing the different roles and responsibilities of women and men and it is influenced by laws, culture, religion, history and economic factors. They are socially constructed,” said Mr Ginis.

The stereotypical thinking that gender is a female thing has to stop at some point for real progress to eventuate. Policy makers must see issues from a gendered lens so that policies, processes and systems created are fair and inclusive, taking into consideration the marginalized minority as well.

BPNG staff were very appreciative of the training because it has broadened their understanding of how to identify existing processes and systems that may be unfair or not inclusive and what they can do to ensure their equitable practices in their professional conduct.

“Why do we have corporate and business/ executive section in our organizations when we can consider special needs sections so that we can be inclusive,” said one participant.

The participant gave examples of the banks and the airports where they have in place some form of special preference to those big corporate clients while the minority group follows the main queues like the rest of the population.

This training encourages people to put on the GESI lens and ask the why, where, what and how questions when analyzing issues encountered when providing a service or receiving it.

The aim of this GESI Sensitization and mainstreaming sessions are to roll out the GESI policy and eventually every public service organization will have established their respective GESI Helpdesk and qualified officers to be employed under this position to implement this policy. Department of Personnel Management, the custodian and implementer of GESI Policy, will be reviewing this policy this year.