CEDAW/C/PHI/4 English Page 19 NCRFW, the Department of Budget and Management and NEDA issued a joint memorandum circular which outlined the guidelines for integrating gender and development in agency plans and budgets. Moreover, the National Budget Call for fiscal year 1996 (National Budget Memorandum No. 67), and again for 1997, identified women in development/gender and development as a priority concern of the administration towards which government agencies should direct their financial resources. A task force in the Department, headed by an UnderSecretary, has been constituted to study the question and, more permanently, make the budgeting for gender and development a regular feature of the budget process. The Medium-term Philippine Development Plan 1993-1998 15. The Plan provides the basic framework within which government agencies design their work plans. The current plan strongly subscribes to gender and development principles, such as in its human development section, which prescribes the development and expansion of schemes to ensure the integration of gender-responsive concerns at all levels and stages of the development planning process: (a) Establish appropriate mechanisms and conduct an extensive advocacy and consciousness-raising programme on gender concerns to facilitate and effect gender-responsive development planning and programme implementation; (b) Reorient existing data generation, processing and management systems to consider gender concerns; (c) Provide education and training opportunities, placement assistance, and incentives to women who desire to enter non-traditional fields of training; (d) Ensure the responsiveness of information, education and communication, as well as infrastructure and basic services to the needs of women. 16. Specific strategies are also identified in the human development, agri-industrial development and development administration chapters with their corresponding gender-responsive activities in the agencies' priority subsector activities. Philippine Human Rights Plan, 1996-2000 17. The Plan embodies a call to national action for appropriate legislative, administrative and programme measures to address human rights concerns of vulnerable and disadvantaged sectors of the country, including women. 18. In its action statement on women, the Plan reiterates the Government's commitment: (a) To remove obstacles to the participation of women in development, either as contributor or beneficiary; (b) To address the specific problems of women in different regions and localities of the country; /...