_This article is written by Caroline Torén, Founder of Refolda, and Chanel Smith, Executive Director at the Los Angeles County Women and Girls Initiative. _
- The problem: Systemic barriers to gender equality.
- Why it matters: It limits the impact of government services and women’s access to their human rights.
- The solution: Making CEDAW part of local code and adopt gender impact assessments across all government departments.
A wave of change is sweeping across the United States
One jurisdiction at a time, local leaders in the US are advocating for governments to adopt the principles of the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) into local law — and it is working.
CEDAW, also known as the International Bill of Rights for Women, is one of nine core human rights treaties adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It was introduced in 1979 due to the failure of current human rights laws to protect women’s rights.
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Today, over 65 jurisdictions in the US have passed CEDAW ordinances and resolutions, largely thanks to Cities for CEDAW and the CEDAW Challenge — two campaigns empowering women’s advocacy efforts and challenging politicians to advance gender equity. Why is this important? Because the US Congress has yet to ratify CEDAW.
But local leaders are not wasting any time. With the first step overcome, they are now looking at how to implement CEDAW effectively in their workforce and communities. In the following article, we outline our progress in Los Angeles County. The work is led by the Women and Girls Initiative (WGI), an initiative created by the board of supervisors, whose mandate is to establish Los Angeles County as a leader in creating opportunities and improving outcomes for all women and girls by applying a gender lens when the County acts as an employer, a service provider and a partner.
Historic all-female board takes systems approach to equity
An all-female board of supervisors has run Los Angeles County since 2020. In 2022, the board passed an ambitious** **motion asking for a county-wide adoption of gender impact assessments (GIA) to implement the county’s CEDAW ordinance.
As more jurisdictions strive to implement CEDAW, we hope the sweeping wave of change leads to more investments in GIA programmes across the nation.
A GIA is a tool the United Nations, governments and non-profit organisations use to better understand the needs, experiences and opportunities of all women and girls, men and boys and those on the gender spectrum. It is a methodology that teaches us to question the assumption that policies, programmes and services affect or benefit people in the same way and helps staff estimate the impact — positive, negative, or neutral — on different groups.
With Los Angeles County employing over 100,000 people and serving a population of ten million, the GIA programme constitutes one of the largest efforts in the country to mainstream an intersectional gender lens into government operations. To institutionalise CEDAW, the GIA board motion:
- Takes a whole-of-government approach, tasking all county departments to participate.
- Aligns the GIA programme with departments’ annual goal evaluation, avoiding the problem of gender equity being addressed in silo.
WGI sponsored a community listening session for SD4 — the Youth Commission.
Photo credit: Youth Commission
A strategic investment in county departments
To support departments, the Women and Girls Initiative created a training and coaching curriculum and grouped departments into cohorts. The goal was to set departments up for success by assisting them in applying a gender lens to their internal processes, such as the design and implementation of their programmes and services. Furthermore, we wanted departments to learn from one another and see that what we asked of them was possible.
To date, the Women and Girls Initiative has trained 31 of 39 departments on how to conduct a gender impact assessment. As a result, all departments have:
- Assessed their data collection processes and capacity to collect, analyse and report on data by gender and other socio-demographic variables.
- Developed a GIA mission statement outlining the department’s commitment to advancing gender equity, in line with the department’s strategic plan.
- Identified 1 to 2 gender equity goals, strategies to achieve these goals and metrics to measure their impact in the areas of external services, workforce and leadership.
- Assessed what family-friendly benefits the department offers and if the department has the necessary support structure to ensure employees can access family-friendly benefits in a timely manner.
- Received a GIA dashboard with key data points and an implementation framework to track their progress.
Tracking progress for gender equity
The 2022 GIA cohorts have already reported promising outcomes, such as an increase in the number of women in executive leadership and traditionally male-dominated fields, including ground maintenance and civil engineering. With county departments increasing investments in their data infrastructure, Los Angeles County looks forward to tracking our progress and measuring change against our 2022 baselines.
As more jurisdictions strive to implement CEDAW, we hope the sweeping wave of change leads to more investments in GIA programmes across the nation. While we still have a lot of work to do to advance gender equity, we hope our efforts can support and inspire others.
In Los Angeles County, the GIA programme is helping to set new standards and normalise the use of an intersectional gender lens in government operations. We have all county departments to thank for this progress. While the Women and Girls Initiative helps to facilitate, train and advise, the departments lead the hard work toward cultural and systems change. Follow our work at **ceo.lacounty.gov/wgi **and keep an eye out for our forthcoming GIA report to learn more about departments’ strides towards gender equity.
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(Image credit: Flickr)
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