CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 housing services, and training facilities and their representation in decision-making bodies for the sector at all levels. c. Republic Act 8850, or the Fisheries Law of 1998, requires that women be included as members of municipality or city fisheries and aquatic resource management councils that implement the government’s coastal resource management program. 146. Regional and local government institutional mechanisms on GAD were created, such as the one established in the Regional Development Council of Region 10, Provincial Commission on Women in Bulacan in Central Luzon, and GAD technical committees that are covered by local ordinances. C. REMAINING CHALLENGES AND OBSTACLES 147. Commitment and political will to implement the GAD budget among government officials. This is particularly evident among department secretaries, heads of agencies and top local executives. Because of their limited knowledge on the GAD budget and its purpose, there is also the tendency to resist the implementation of the policy and instead finance other projects. Moreover, there are no sanctions for those who do not comply with the GAD budget policy. 148. Inadequate mechanism for monitoring progress. There is a lot of progress in this regard. However, the remaining challenge is the full implementation or application of these indicators, frameworks and modalities in order to generate the much needed information on gender issues like prevalence of violence against women and children, quantifying the economic contribution of women including measurement of unpaid work, or statistics on the informal sector. There is also a need to sensitize and orient users and producers on key sectors to effectively use and analyze gender statistics currently being generated by the statistical system. The continuing task is the development of a comprehensive monitoring framework to cover most areas of concern and thereby address the clamor of government agencies to synchronize all reporting and monitoring activities into one. 149. Institutional mechanisms on women. The NCRFW Executive Director heads the Secretariat of the Board of Commissioners, but the Chairperson has overall responsibility of the Commission. The latter, however, is neither paid nor vested with legal authority. Without a cabinet rank, she has little access to cabinet-level decision-making, weakening the policy function of NCRFW. With the end of the CIDA project, the budget allocation of NCRFW will be inadequate. NCRFW structure and mandate should be strengthened and broadened and its budgetary allocation increased to enable it to meet its obligations as a policy group and oversight agency for women’ empowerment and gender equality. 52