#WEcanbeEquAll, theme for women's month celebration

THE National Women's Month Celebration launches a new recurring theme from this year to 2028: WE for gender equality and inclusive society. Spearheaded by the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), the celebration will call for the empowerment of women and girls toward maximizing their benefits from innovation and technology and bridging the gender gap in ICT and connectivity. Accompanied by the official hashtag #WEcanbeEquAll, the theme is both a positive affirmation and a call to action. It is a testament to the milestones achieved in closing gender gaps in the country. Even though it dropped two notches in the 2022 Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum, the Philippines continues to be the best-performing country in Asia in terms of gender parity. The Philippines scored 0.783, a slight drop from the score of 0.784 in 2022, meaning the gender gap still needs to be closed by 21.7 percent. Also, the Philippines is the only Asian country in the top twenty, with Singapore and Lao PDR ranking 49th and 53rd, respectively.

The focus for 2023 aligns with the International Women's Day theme "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality." It is in line with the priority theme of the 67th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Member states are invited to contribute to the session on "innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls" from March 6 to 17, 2023. A survey by She Loves Data, a Singapore-headquartered not-for-profit organization with a mission to create fairer opportunities for women in the fast-growing data economy, showed more insights on women's desire to upskill. Both She Loves Data and Milieu Insight conducted a consumer survey in Southeast Asia to gather workforce insights on learning pathways. The results showed that 87 percent of women in the region were keen on taking courses to enhance their professional skills.