CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 103. According to the government’s Institute of Labor Studies, the percentage of women in the informal sector rose from 39 percent in 1996 to 42 percent in 2001. Informal sector work enables women to combine their reproductive and productive work, productive tasks, in such livelihood activities as vending or hawking, operating small eateries or stores, laundry or sewing at home. In this sector, work is physically exhausting or uncomfortable and income is usually low or irregular. Work in the informal sector also perpetuates multiple burden of women. III. POLICY AND PROGRAM FRAMEWORK: GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT MAINSTREAMING Philippine Development Plan for Women 104. In 1987, before the approach became the international norm, gender and development (GAD) mainstreaming was initiated by the Philippine Government. This was soon after the installation by People Power of Corazon C. Aquino as President. It began with influencing the Mediumterm Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP), 1987-1992, with the inclusion of the phrase, “Women, who constitute half of the population, shall be effectively mobilized,” in the plan’s overall thrust of harnessing the country’s human resources to reduce poverty, generate employment, promote social equity and justice and attain sustainable economic growth. This became the basis for the preparation and adoption of the Philippine Development Plan for Women (PDPW), 1989-1992, as companion plan of the MTPDP, 1987-1992. The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), which is the national machinery for women, worked closely with the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the central planning agency, in coordinating the preparation and approval of PDPW. Philippine Plan for Gender-Responsive Development 105. Realizing that the transformation of the socio-cultural as well as eco-political system would require time and a systematic approach, the government decided that the successor plan should have a thirty-year time frame. The Philippine Plan for Gender-Responsive Development (PPGD), 1995-2025, is a strategic plan that translated the Women’s Convention and the Beijing Platform for Action into policies, strategies, programs and projects for Filipino women. Among the PPGD goals are women’s empowerment and gender equality. As with PDPW, the formulation of the PPGD involved other government agencies and GAD advocates in nongovernment organizations and the academe. Framework Plan for Women 106. A time slice of the PPGD, the Framework Plan for Women (FPW) pursues the twin goals of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The FPW includes more specific, doable and results-focused programs and projects. It envisions development as “equitable, sustainable, free from violence, respectful of human rights, supportive of self-determination and the actualization of human potentials, and participatory and empowering.” As mentioned in the earlier sections, FPW focused on three areas of concern. It also provides the standards and mechanisms to fulfill the country’s commitments to international agreements such as the Women’s Convention, the Beijing Platform for Action and the Beijing+5 Outcome document. 107. The FPW objectives in the economic empowerment issue are: to enhance sustainable access of women to capital, market, information, technology and technical assistance; to enhance 40