This article is written by Marisa Miodosky, gender equality strategy leader at Buenos Aires City Government

The city government in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, has strived to advance women's rights for more than 30 years.

The city has one of the most modern and egalitarian Constitutions and was among the pioneers to create a dedicated agency to advance equality and women’s rights. Over the years, most of the policies implemented by our Women's Affairs Directorate have been aimed at preventing and eliminating gender-based violence, which is a basic precondition to achieve gender equality.

However, in Buenos Aires, as in any other global city, there are many other inequalities that affect women’s daily lives.

Bringing gender inequality into the light

In 2018 the City government took a giant first step towards making these differences visible and providing the evidence to rethink and understand their causes and origins.

The result was the BA Gender Indicator System. It’s the first of its kind in Latin America and among one of a very few data and gender portals implemented by a local government anywhere in the world.

The system consists of a thoroughly selected collection of data that sheds light on how people's lives are affected by their gender at a certain year or along a period of time. For example, it shows how women perform in the labour market, how safe they feel in public spaces, how much they participate in public life or how much access they have to health security relative to men. The data is published in a web portal where users can interact with the indicators through charts and graphs. All the information is downloadable and reusable.

The indicators are organised into three overall categories called autonomies. They all relate to the framework of women´s autonomy, which is promoted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The foundation for this framework is that women are entitled to make decisions that affect their lives in three main interrelated pillars or ‘autonomies’:

  • Economic autonomy: this is captured in women's access to economic resources through, for example, labour market participation and educational credits. By browsing this category users can find information about the gender pay gap, the average time spent on caring responsibilities and the percentage of women that have attained higher education relative to men.
  • Decision-making autonomy: This second pillar refers to women's ability to make their voice heard in society, and is measured in indicators such as women’s participation in the different branches of government, the proportion of women legislators, with hierarchical positions in the Judicial system, etc.
  • Physical autonomy: The last pillar refers to women’s right to their own bodies and wellbeing. This category is measured in indicators such as maternal mortality and femicides rates.

The portal also includes demographic data, which provides the necessary context to understand the information and a section with administrative records produced by governmental agencies about the use of certain programs and services. Most of the information comes from official surveys and censuses run by the City Government and some other from external sources.

We built the system with the aim of informing public policy, but also becoming a valuable input for journalists, academics and activists, so they can use official information to raise the quality of public conversation on gender issues in the City.

Despite the progress that has been made on most of the indicators over the years, the inequality gaps are still striking

What we did not know at that time was that the system would later create the foundation for Buenos Aires’ Comprehensive Gender Equality Strategy and mainstream the gender approach across the city’s administration.

How we built the portal

My team and I work for the General Secretariat — a kind of Cabinet Office located at the centre of Government that deals with cross-sectorial high-relevant agendas such as climate change. We have the capacity to coordinate transversal programs but also to involve other agencies in that process. Our first step when we began building the BA Gender Indicator System in 2017 was to establish a strategic partnership with the Statistic Bureau as they own and produce sex-disaggregated data. With them, and following the conceptual framework of ECLAC, we identified around 100 indicators based on available data that we wanted to include in the system.

Second, we partnered with the Women's Affairs Directorate as an advisory body. With them, we organized a series of consultations with academics and civil society advocates who use data for their gender-related research projects and to advocate for improvements to the current policies. This helped us prioritize the indicators and identify missing data. During these exercises, we realized that data related to gender-based violence allegations or the proportion of women in senior positions in publicly owned enterprises were produced outside the local administration. We wanted that data in our portal, so we signed agreements with these institutions that allowed us to access the data and update it on a regular basis.

Finally, we started a campaign which included a tour across different government agencies to raise awareness of the importance of producing and publishing sex-disaggregated data. In doing so we identified “gender champions” who were interested in either organizing, processing or cleaning their data to be uploaded into the system. These champions later became our allies in helping design new gender equality policies.

Putting data to good use

After eight months of hard work, the portal was ready and was publicly presented by the Mayor of Buenos Aires, who strongly believes in the use of evidence for policymaking. It got an excellent reception by the media and activists groups. Despite the progress that has been made on most of the indicators over the years, the inequality gaps are still striking.

Based on data that showed that women felt insecure in public transport, different initiatives were created with the goal of ensuring that women can travel through the City safely

For example, women on average spend 1.5 hours more per day on unpaid caring duties than men, and women’s participation in the labour market is 13 percentage points lower than their male counterparts. That data served as the basis for promoting a new parental leave scheme for the local civil service whose objective is to promote co-responsibility in care. The scheme has also attracted attention from the private sector, and some companies are considering a similar approach.

With all this available data, we did our first analysis on the evolution of the main indicators. We were able to identify the main gaps in each autonomy, and that allowed us to analyze the set of existing government programs and recognized policy gaps and opportunities for new cross-sectional programs and collaborations with the private and third sectors.

That analysis was the origin of a prolific cross-sectorial policy designing process, backed and encouraged by the Mayor, who, convinced about the evidence, set gender equality a priority for his administration. Numerous ministries and agencies started to use the data from the system and the gender approach to adapt and/or create new interventions like the new parental leave aimed at sharing caring responsibilities.

Based on data that showed that women felt insecure in public transport, different initiatives were created with the goal of ensuring that women can travel through the City safely, without being subjected to gender-based violence. Firstly, we launched a free messaging line (SMS) for women who suffer harassment on public transport. Secondly, we incorporated a filter to request a female driver in the BA Taxi app.

The Gender Indicator System has proven to be an excellent driver to mainstream the gender approach and to accelerate progress in Buenos Aires city

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

Lastly, the data highlighted the lack of women in decision-making positions in the public sector. To address that gap, a law was passed requiring women to make up at least half of electoral lists. These lists also have to alternate in how they rank men and women. There’s no use in having equal numbers of men and women on the candidate list if the female candidates are at the bottom of the list. In the 2019 midterm election, an equal number of male and female legislators were elected for the first time ever.

An additional five laws were passed in 2019 and about 12 new projects were designed using the data available at the Gender Indicator System. Not less important, there were other bills or decisions that were stopped or changed based on gender data analysis. The Gender Indicator System has been updated three times since its launch date and more indicators have been included. It has proven to be an excellent driver to mainstream the gender approach and to accelerate progress in Buenos Aires city.

Still, there are several obstacles to overcome in terms of gender equality. Having the data to track progress or setbacks makes everybody accountable and strengthens the case for further gender-oriented policies and ensuring women are not left behind. — Marisa Miodosky

(Picture credit: Unsplash)