A City Tailored to WomenThe Role of Municipal Governments in Achieving Gender Equality

2004 EDITION

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The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the City of Montreal (Femmes et ville Program) encourage the use, trans-lation, adaptation and reproduction of this document for non-commercial purposes and if the source material is credited.

A City Tailored to Women – The Role of Municipal Governments in Achieving Gender EqualityDocument protected by copyright law © Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and the City of Montreal (Femmes et ville Program)

All rights reserved.

La version originale en français est disponible sur demande. Version española disponible bajo pedido.

Federation of Canadian MunicipalitiesInternational Centre for Municipal Development 24 Clarence Street Ottawa, OntarioK1N 5P3

Brock CarltonDirectorInternational Centre for Municipal Development

Telephone: (613) 241-5221Fax: (613) 241-7117E-mail: international@fcm.caWeb Site: www.icmd-cidm.ca

City of Montreal’s Femmes et ville(Women in the City) ProgramService du développement culturel et de la qualité du milieu de vieDirection du développement social800, boulevard de Maisonneuve EstMontreal, QuebecH2L 4L8

Anne MichaudCoordinator E-mail: anmicho@ville.montreal.qc.caWeb site: www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville

This publication is available online at:www.icmd-cidm.ca/www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville

FCM Liaison: Renée GirouxConcept and Coordination: Anne Michaud

Research (First Edition): Sophie PaquinWriter (First Edition): Danielle StantonCollaboration: Joyce Brown, Francine Gagnon, Gloria Gallant

Research and Writing (2004 Edition): Anne Michaud

Research Assistants: Sophie Dupiech, Kim Cornellissen,Marie-Pierre MartinetEnglish Translation: Sarah BinderEnglish Editing: Susie Lamarche

June 2004 (Second Edition, revised and expanded)ISBN: O-919080-69-3 FCM Publication: 1030E

The Federation gratefully acknowledges the support ofthe Canadian International Development Agency for itspublications and international programmes.

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It has become increasingly clear that action to improvethe daily lives of citizens is at its most effective at thelocal government (municipal) level.

But while both women and men are affected by theactions of municipal governments, they experiencethem differently. Women are not as actively involvedin municipal politics, even though they are specifi-cally affected by decisions that concern their socio-economic condition, including housing, the balancebetween work and family responsibilities, safety,transportation, health and education..

By ensuring the civic participation of women and byresponding to their specific needs, municipal govern-ments can play a leading role in helping to achievethe equality of men and women. This is the challengewe invite you to take up.

This publication is a cooperative effort between theCity of Montreal’s Femmes et ville (Women in theCity) Program and the International Centre forMunicipal Development of the Federation ofCanadian Municipalities. The first edition, publishedin 1997, was widely distributed in both French andEnglish and was well received throughout the world.

In the past seven years, and especially after theIstanbul Cities Summit (Habitat II), there has been aworldwide proliferation in gender-equality initiativesand in networks that facilitate the exchange of goodpractices and expertise relevant to municipalitiesand their residents.

The 2004 revised and expanded edition of this docu-ment provides references to organizations, eventsand publications that are available on the Internet.The electronic version of this document will beupdated periodically with the help of an online ques-tionnaire. We invite you to fill out this questionnaireand share your experience at www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville

We hope municipal governments will use this docu-ment to assess the impact of all their decisions onthe quality of life of women, and adjust their actionsaccordingly. By sharing the ongoing internationalbrainstorming on this issue and presenting actualachievements, we want to contribute to a socialenvironment where women can participate fully incity life for the benefit of all our communities.

An Invitation to Municipalities in Canada and Abroad

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AN INVITATION TO MUNICIPALITIES IN CANADA AND ABROAD .............................................................. III

LIVING TOGETHER IN THE CITY .............................................................................................................. 1A Local and Worldwide Issue ............................................................................................................ 2

Networks for Sharing Information, Creating Awareness, Setting Examples and Providing Tools............ 4

WOMEN TAKING THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE................................................................................................ 71. Elected Representatives and Managers: Women on an Equal Footing ............................................ 8

2. Women as Full-Fledged Citizens .................................................................................................. 13

3. The “Ideal” Women-Friendly City ................................................................................................ 17Making a Commitment ................................................................................................................ 17Creating Helpful Structures and Mechanisms .............................................................................. 18

4. A Gender Perspective for the City: .............................................................................................. 22The Women-Friendly City ............................................................................................................ 22Four Steps Toward Better Understanding and More Effective Action ............................................ 23Methods and Tools for Gender Mainstreaming in Local Management .......................................... 30

5. Achievements ............................................................................................................................ 33

6. Questionnaire: How Women-Friendly Is Your City? ........................................................................ 50

Contents

VI

Living Together in the City

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Cities are primarily environments for living. Thearchitecture and design of our cities and neighbour-hoods, as well as the various urban functions, reflectour culture, values, lifestyle and relationships – inshort, our way of living together.

Cities belong to the women and men who live inthem and citizenship begins primarily at the neigh-bourhood and city levels. The design of urban infra-structure and activities must permit both womenand men to fully exercise their citizenship.

Long confined to domestic activities, women havegradually moved into the public arena. The urban set-ting must adapt to this cultural and social change,and cities must now deal with the realities of women.

In the mid-seventies, North American researchersbegan to examine the relationship between womenand the urban environment. By the eighties andnineties, municipal action started to include thisdimension thanks to the involvement of women’sgroups. Many cities responded to their requests byinstitutionalizing mechanisms such as the Safe CityCommittee in Toronto, the Femmes et ville (Womenin the City) Program in Montreal, and the Femmes etville Commission in Quebec City.

The implementation of regional and local develop-ment policies and the debate over municipal mergershave led to a new mobilization of women’s and gender-equality groups. Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec Cityhave ratified the IULA Worldwide Declaration onWomen in Local Government among their strategiesto solidify the commitment of the new municipalentities to gender equality. As well, Femmes et villeconsultative bodies have been requested and createdin a number of municipalities.

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A Local and Worldwide IssueImproving the quality of life for women quicklybecame an international concern. In 1994, theOrganization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) brought together for the firsttime delegations from 27 countries to examine thetheme, Women in the City: Housing, Services, andthe Urban Environment. This conference allowed par-ticipants to share experiences and practices and tocompare national policies designed to bolster theparticipation of women in municipal development.

The United Nations’ Conference on Human Settlements(Habitat II), held in Istanbul in June 1996, marked animportant watershed by giving a prominent place towomen’s concerns. Following closely after the WorldConference on Women (Beijing, 1995), Habitat IIprompted member states to make commitments to acommon goal in the framework of its HabitatAgenda: achieving equality between men and womenin the management of human institutions withincities and communities (see box).

The first World Assembly of Cities and LocalAuthorities, a Habitat II side event that broughttogether over 500 mayors, issued a final declarationurging members of municipal associations to imple-ment the Habitat Agenda at the local level; the signa-tories specifically resolved to “accord every opportunityfor full access and participation by women in municipaldecision-making by ensuring necessary provisions for anequitable distribution of power and authority.”

Habitat II also established the importance of part-nerships and the sharing of experiences andresources, and called on governments, local authori-ties and their partners to carry out five-year plans.

In 1998, the International Union of Local Authorities(IULA), meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, passed itsWorldwide Declaration on Women in Local Governmentcalling on local authorities to echo the gender-equalitycommitments made by their respective governments.

By the time of the review meeting in New York inJune 2001 (Istanbul+5), there was already a body ofexamples of progress towards gender equality,among other goals in human settlements, due tolocal partnerships between women’s groups, civilsociety and local authorities.

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The Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment www.oecd.org

The Worldwide Declaration on Women in LocalGovernment www.cities-localgovernments.org

Habitat Agenda – Gender Equality:Source: www.un.org/ga/Istanbul+5/

Paragraph 46 – “We commit ourselves to the goal ofgender equality in human settlements development.We further commit ourselves to:

• Integrating gender perspectives in human settle-ments related legislation, policies, programs and projects through the application of gender-sensitive analysis;

• Developing conceptual and practical methodologiesfor incorporating gender perspectives in human set-tlements planning, development and evaluation,including the development of indicators;

• Collecting, analyzing and disseminating gender-disaggregated data and information on humansettlements issues, including statistical meansthat recognize and make visible the unremuner-ated work of women, for use in policy and pro-gram planning and implementation;

• Integrating a gender perspective in the designand implementation of environmentally sound andsustainable resource management mechanisms,production techniques and infrastructure develop-ment in rural and urban areas;

• Formulating and strengthening policies and prac-tices to promote the full and equal participationof women in human settlements planning anddecision-making.”

www.unchs.org/unchs/english/hagenda/ch-3d.htm

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Networks for Sharing Information,Creating Awareness, SettingExamples and Providing ToolsTo move the gender equality issue forward and buildup common reference points, numerous networkshave sprung up in recent years in many parts of theworld at the local, regional and national levels. Thesenetworks aim to connect local authorities, electedwomen, grassroots women’s groups and researchers,as well as non-governmental organizations.

These mechanisms for the exchange of informationand experience raise awareness among municipalauthorities, so that they create the conditionsneeded for women to fully exercise their citizenshipand thus contribute to ensuring that women and meninhabit the city together equally.

Many subsequent international conferences haveencouraged the sharing of practices and producedstrategic alliances between networks of grassrootswomen’s organizations and networks of municipali-ties and national associations of local authorities.The launch of contests to recognize good practices ingender equality and women’s participation in localdecision-making, as well as the inclusion of these cri-teria in several other contests on good urban prac-tices, have validated the actions and publicized themin other municipalities and communities.

The adoption of policies and perspectives that pro-mote women’s participation and gender equality bygovernments, international bodies, national associa-tions of municipalities and local authorities hasfinally made clear their importance to good urbangovernance.

Networks

The Huairou Commission is a coalition of networks ofgrassroots women’s organizations throughout theworld dedicated to following up the commitmentsundertaken at Habitat II through such campaigns asWomen and Local Governance. www.huairou.org

The Commission sponsors a contest on best prac-tices and has organized several sessions of theGrassroots Women’s International Academy. Itworks in close partnership with local authorities, theUnited Nations and many other organizations.

The Women in Cities International network held theFirst International Seminar on Women’s Safety,Making the Links, in Montreal in 2002 and launchedthe Women’s Safety Awards in 2004. www.femmesetvilles.org

The International Union of Local Authorities (IULA),together with the national associations of its mem-bers, has played a key role through its WorldwideDeclaration on Women in Local Government, its gen-der-equality committee and its implementation of aGlobal Program on Women in Local Decision-Making.

United Cities and Local Governments, the new inter-national organization resulting from the fusion ofIULA and UTO (United Towns Organization), is com-mitted to carrying on this work as a priority and tobecoming the main source of information onwomen’s participation in local decision-making. www.cities-localgovernments.org/uclg/

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The United Nations agency UN-Habitat published apolicy document on women and urban governance in2001 and has included the issue in its GlobalCampaign on Urban Governance. www.unhabitat.org/campaigns/governance/

UN-Habitat also has a policy on gender equality.www.unhabitat.org/pubs/genderpolicy/

The periodical Habitat Debate published a specialissue, Towards Woman-Friendly Cities (Vol. 8, No. 4,2002). www.unhabitat.org/hd/hd.asp

UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund forWomen) has started working with projects regardingwomen’s participation in local decision-making inregions of Latin America, including several Andeancommunities. www.unifem.undp.org

Best Practices Contests

Contests were organized in 2003 and 2004 to rec-ognize good practices in promoting gender equalityand women’s participation by cities and local gov-ernments in the Latin America/Caribbean region.www.pgualc.org (Spanish only) and in the Asia/Pacific regionwww.fukuoka.unhabitat.org

A number of actions have been documented as aresult (see Section 5). The good practices contests,through their questionnaires and entry forms, drawthe attention of cities to municipal policies andstructures they need to set up.

A questionnaire drawn up by the City of Montreal(available in French, English and Spanish) will helpdevelop case studies of “women-friendly cities.”Cities are invited to fill it out online at the site of theFemmes et ville program. www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville

UN-Habitat’s Best Practices contest includesGender Equality and Women’s Empowerment amongits categories. Some 200 nominated case studiescan be consulted in the database. www.bestpractices.org

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7

Women Taking their Rightful Place

Gender equality has long been recognized as a basicprinciple by many societies. Now it is time to applyit to everyday life by responding to the differentneeds of women and men in the very organization ofthe urban environment.

Cities have long held the leading role in social life.They continue to play an increasingly important partin organizing and providing services to their citizens,both men and women, especially in the context ofurbanization, decentralization and globalization. Butwomen experience city life differently from men,because established norms and traditions have giventhem different roles and responsibilities.

Similar treatment, therefore, does not necessarilyend up being equal treatment. The approach that“whatever is good for men is automatically good forwomen” must be dropped because its apparent neu-trality is misleading: it conceals the specific needsof men and women and prevents us from detectingand rectifying persistent inequalities.

Women are experts in day-to-day living, a largemajority of them having to juggle jobs and domesticduties. They have less time than men for politicalinvolvement or participation in consultations or deci-sion-making. Thus, they have little say in the plan-ning of municipal services, installations and designand are often poorly served as citizens: inadequateday-care services, rigid operating hours of municipalservices, poorly adapted public transpor tation,unsafe public places, etc. The lack of access to serv-ices and resources also creates an obstacle tomen’s equal sharing in household and family tasks.

Cities must now diversify, adapt to modern lifestyles,and support the changes needed to achieve genderequality at each stage of life. It is time for cities togive women a far bigger role and for women to taketheir rightful place as equal citizens.

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1. Women Elected Representativesand Managers on an Equal FootingEven though women make up more than 50 per centof the population, they do not come close to makingeven half of the political and administrative deci-sions in cities.

There are many hurdles to women’s participation inmunicipal government, the main one being the needto balance work and family responsibilities, particu-larly for women with young children. An organiza-tional structure that perpetuates a division of labourbased on gender is another hurdle. Thus, whilewomen must be made aware of the importance oftaking their rightful place, it is equally essential thatmen be educated, since they can – and must – bewomen’s greatest allies in achieving gender equality.

Municipal governments have a role to play in helpingwomen enter the decision-making process.Municipal decision-makers must understand thestakes and eliminate the systemic obstacles facingwomen.

Equal representation is certainly one way to ensurethat the needs of men and women will be addressed inmunicipal planning and management. But aiming tostrike a balance in the number of elected men andwomen will not be enough if the elected women remainpigeonholed in certain sectors. Transportation, finan-cial management, highway maintenance and urbandesign also concern women. Equality also applies tomanagement and throughout the municipal publicservice itself.

Elected RepresentativesLocal and international gender-equality actions havefocused on raising the number of women elected tomayoralty and council posts. Despite these efforts,in 2004, women accounted for only 4.6 per cent ofmayors (34 countries surveyed) and 15 per cent ofcouncillors (52 countries.)1

With rare exceptions – such as in Sweden, wherewomen make up 42 per cent of elected municipalcouncillors – progress in this area has been duemostly to national laws which impose quotas or parity.For example, in India, more than one million womengained access to municipal councils after a 1992constitutional amendment assured them 30 per centof seats in local administrations. France’s law on par-ity pushed the proportion of women councillors from21% to 47% in the 2001 election. It seems, then, thataffirmative-action measures are the best way tocounter systemic discrimination, the cause of thestagnation seen across the world.

Various additional measures can be taken, includinga requirement by municipal political parties that atleast 50 per cent of candidates for election bewomen – providing they are not made to run in dis-tricts where they stand little chance of beingelected.

1. Worldwide Program on Women and Local Decision-Making www.cities-localgovernments.org

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When a political party comes to power, it can bolsterequal representation on the executive committee byreserving a number of seats for women. The sameapplies to nominations on various municipal com-missions or regional and internal committees. Infact, the goal of gender parity should guide everyaspect of municipal politics.

Women’s access to power can be facilitated by con-ditions such as the commitment and support of polit-ical parties, the building of a local and countrywidenetwork of elected women, a mentorship system,training, the promotion of leadership among girls andwomen and, of course, financial support by govern-ments and municipalities.

National governments can play a part in this bypassing gender-equality laws – including measuresthat help to end violence against women and toreconcile work and family life – and by financingprograms that encourage women to take part inlocal decision-making.

While it is a prerequisite for gender equality, theequal representation of women in local administra-tions does not necessarily guarantee that the munic-ipal management will take women’s specific needsinto account. To achieve this end, women represen-tatives must not be confined to traditionally “femi-nine” portfolios (i.e., social or cultural ones).

They must also become real advocates for genderequality among their colleagues and in the localadministration. The development of training pro-grams in gender perspective for women and menelected officials, as well as the building of partner-ships with local women’s groups, are some of thestrong trends noted worldwide.

In many regions of the world, the national and inter-national associations of local authorities support thedevelopment of networks of local elected women.These networks make it easier to organize trainingworkshops for women elected officials and politicalcandidates, to research and draw up local policieswith a gender perspective, to gather data, etc.

A breakdown by province is available at: www.icmd-cidm.ca

Canada (2004)F M

Mayors 419 3,309% 11.2% 88.8%Councillors 4,534 16,314% 21.7% 78.3%City Managers 1,926 1,802% 51.7% 48.3%

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See

Updated figures on the proportion of women in localauthorities by region and country are available onthe Web site of the United Cities and LocalGovernments (“Women” or “Gender” sections) at:www.cities-localgovernments.org

The Summit of Women Mayors and Local Officials inAsia/Pacific took place in June 2001 (24 participantcountries) with the backing of the United Nations. Formore on the situation of women in local urbangovernments in the region, see the UNESCAP studyWomen in Local Government in Asia and the Pacific:A comparative analysis of thirteen countries at: www.unescap.org/publications/detail.asp?id=502

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the preferredmechanisms for the promotion and support of womenpoliticians and for the advancement of gender equalityhave included the creation of the Federation ofElected Municipal Women (Federación de MujeresMunicipalistas de América Latina y El Caribe), theconsolidation of national associations of electedwomen and the creation of “women” commissionswithin municipal associations. For more on this sub-ject, see Género y gobierno local (Gender and LocalGovernment) on the site of the Federation of LatinAmerican Cities and Municipal Associations at: www.iula.net/

In Africa, the emphasis has been on devising strate-gies to achieve gender equality and on the creationof a women’s caucus within national associations oflocal authorities. The World Program of the UnitedCities and Local Governments supports such initia-tives in four countries (Kenya, Namibia, Uganda andZimbabwe) as well as the establishment of a

women’s caucus and platform within the AfricaUnion of Local Authorities.www.locgovinfo.co.zw/

The study Genre et gestion locale du changementdans sept pays de l’Union européenne (Gender andthe Local Management of Change), conductedbetween 2000 and 2003, set out to measure theimpact elected women officials have made inBelgium, France, Greece, Finland, Italy, Portugal andSweden. It also identifies the manner in which gen-der affects public policy in urbanism, city design,safety, and the care of dependent persons.www.sh.se/genreetlocal

In December 2003, the Council of EuropeanMunicipalities and Regions and its Committee ofWomen Elected Representatives of Local andRegional Authorities launched the “Is YourMunicipality at the Vanguard of Equality?” project,which aims to document good practices, publishcase studies and draw up a “model egalitarian city”to inspire cities in Europe and elsewhere.www.ccre.org/

The European Commission’s Community Programmeon Gender Equality (2001-2005) funds these activities.europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/equ_opp/fund_en.html

In Canada, the creation by the Federation ofCanadian Municipalities of the Committee onCanadian Women in Municipal Government led to theorganization of activities of exchange and supportamong elected women and to the creation of theIncreasing Women’s Participation in MunicipalConsultation Processes project.www.icmd-cidm.ca

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Municipal Employees To participate more fully in municipal planning andmanagement, women must take their rightful placewithin municipal services, where they have tradi-tionally occupied mostly low-ranking positions.Municipalities can use various means to raise thenumber of women in management, including:

• Employment equity programs designed toincrease the number of women managers, profes-sionals and specialized workers. However, tomaintain the gains achieved, municipal govern-ments and trade unions must assess the impactof job cuts since, being the last in, women run ahigher risk of being the first out. Similarly, sincehiring is currently restricted, the rules governingappointments and promotions should bereassessed to favour the access of women to sen-ior positions;

• Affirmative action for access to non-traditionaltrades through activities such as training, pairingof employees and mentoring female university stu-dents;

• Measures to help women and men balance workand family obligations, such as flexible or part-time working hours and workplace day-care;

• Measures to provide employees with a safe andnon-discriminatory workplace, including policiesagainst sexual harassment and a safety-orientedworkplace design.

Government policies on equal access to jobs, wageequity, and attracting women to non-traditionaltrades provide an invaluable support for the imple-mentation of such measures at the municipal level.

Breaking through the Glass Ceiling

Rennes (France)In response to the very low proportion of women inthe upper echelons of the municipal administration,Rennes carried out a study to identify the obstaclesand blocks to women’s careers and to shed light onthe inequality between men and women in recruit-ment, job hierarchy and assigned responsibilities.Through interviews with women, the study foundthat their failure to advance professionally was dueto their difficulty in adapting to a work schedulebased on a male model of time use.

The study prompted the city administration to set upthe Group for Equal Opportunities for Men andWomen and, given the extent of the problems, tocreate in 1995 a position unique in France of “EqualOpportunities Delegate”. The delegate was giventhe mandate to act as the inter face between cityemployees and the executive. The delegate coordi-nates the group’s work, synthesizes its recommen-dations and presents them to the executive. Thegroup later split into four thematic subgroups:Professional Equality/Parity, Time Use, Health AndWorking Conditions and Communications. TheCommunications sub-group reports internally on theinitiative and keep women’s work on the agenda.

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Rennes has also developed training programs toraise the qualifications and status of jobs tradition-ally held by women. It has committed to makingworking conditions more ergonomic. Training ininjury-preventing working positions and movementshas especially benefited women working with chil-dren and the elderly. Equipment and furniture havealso been re-evaluated along those lines andreplaced as needed.

The city has taken on the problem of work schedulesand the difficult issue of balancing work and privatelife. This is the main cause of inequalities betweenworking men and women, as women executives inthe original study pointed out. More attention hasalso been paid to the problem of sexual and psycho-logical harassment. Parallel to the administration’sgroup, elected women representatives have set uptheir own task force, which, among other actions,has produced a white paper analyzing political prac-tices (such as the time and duration of meetings,delayed transmission of files, an old guard of malecolleagues monopolizing speaking turns) and recom-mending changes.

That was how the majority party’s women electedrepresentatives were able to create a common cul-ture, build solidarity – for example, in how they han-dle dossiers in council – raise awareness of sexistbehaviour and denounce stereotyping.

Making the top municipal administrators sensitive togender equality has been a prerequisite throughoutthis effort. Networking was also a productive strat-egy and the “Femmes dans la ville” (Women in theCity) consultative committee was a key element inlinking the gender-responsive forces. Gender parityon council, and especially in the executive, con-tributes to eliminating sexist planning and genderstereotypes.Source: Michelle Kergoat www.ville-rennes.fr(French only)

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2. Full-Fledged CitizensDirectly affected by housing conditions, transporta-tion, public services and the urban environment,women have always been very involved in commu-nity life.

But primarily concentrated in traditionally femaleareas such as school committees and communitygroups, women did not go for political power and stilltoday have few means of advocating for their issuesand influencing public policy.

Yet women have developed a specific expertise,namely an alternative vision of city life, and theirexperience represents an added value for municipal-ities.

Women’s contribution to urban life should beacknowledged for its true worth, so that they mayfinally assume an integral role in their community’spolitical and administrative decision-making.

One way to bring this balance about is to favour andsupport the participation of women in public consul-tations and to help them take up key positions onconsultative committees and councils where citi-zens sit.

“Women do not have a linear and compartmentalizedapproach; instead, they tend to be universal and areused to devising solutions to complex problems. Thisapproach may be useful to municipal partners, whomust solve multifaceted and sectoral problems.Therefore, involving women in municipal partnership ismore of a useful undertaking than a form of altruism.”2

Municipal governments can encourage the partici-pation of women by making it easier for them toattend various public consultations: providing child-care or covering the cost of childcare to allow moth-ers to take part in consultation meetings, etc.Moreover, municipalities can reach women who arenot mobile where they live (i.e., in low-cost housingor residences for the elderly) by creating travellingconsultation units.

Finally, they must provide financial and technicalsupport to women’s groups who participate regularlyin those activities. In all cases, municipal authoritiesshould ensure that clear and accessible informationis available. That is a premise and a basic require-ment of democratic life.

2. Women in the City: Housing, Services, and the Urban Environment. OECD (1993), Paris.

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Increasing Women’s Participation in Municipal Consultation Processes

Increasing Women’s Participation in MunicipalConsultation Processes is an FCM project sponsoredby Status of Women Canada. The purpose of the one-year project, started in 2003, is to contribute tochanging municipal consultation practices and poli-cies so that the full diversity of Canadian womenhave a meaningful voice in the decisions that affecttheir daily lives.

Objectives• To equip municipal governments with information,

tools and strategies that will assist them todevelop and implement public par ticipationprocesses that involve the diversity of women intheir communities.

• To make recommendations to FCM, and to partici-pating local municipalities, for action to strengthenwomen’s involvement in public participationprocesses.

• To develop national and local partnerships thatwill strengthen the capacity of municipal govern-ments to involve women, and the capacity ofwomen’s organizations to participate in municipalconsultation and decision-making processes.

A report will be produced, documenting to whatextent current participation processes reflect thefull diversity of women and identifying the factorsthat inhibit or facilitate their participation. There willalso be a toolkit of gender-inclusive participationtools and strategies for municipal governments andwomen’s and community groups.

MethodologyThe project will use five main strategies:

• Building and strengthening partnerships• Surveying gender-inclusive participatory practices

at a municipal level• Participatory action research in local communities• Developing action plans• Creating tools

Building and strengthening partnerships will be a keystrategy at all stages of this project. Building part-nerships involves identifying and strengthening exist-ing networks, as well as developing new connections.

Research into the gender-inclusive public participa-tion processes in Canadian municipalities will providethe context for local projects and the final report. Asurvey will be undertaken to assess where Canadianmunicipalities stand in relation to how they involvethe public in a meaningful way, use participatorypractices that facilitate public involvement, and pro-vide access to these processes for diverse groups ofwomen. This will help to develop research strategiesfor local projects, inform and substantiate a nationalaction plan and suggest the type of tools needed tosupport municipalities to effectively involve diversewomen.

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Six municipalities have been selected to participatein participatory action research: Cowichan Valley (BritishColumbia), Halifax (Nova Scotia), Iqaluit (Nunavut),Montreal (Quebec), Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) andThunder Bay (Ontario).

Although the local projects are based on a nationalframework, each local community tailors theresearch approach to its circumstances and priorities.

Local women, women’s organizations and municipalrepresentatives take part in adapting the researchstrategy, implementing the activities, analyzing thefindings and developing a local action plan. Theresearch includes activities to reach and involvediverse groups of women who are generally notinvolved in that municipality’s participation processesdue to various factors (Aboriginal status, race, class,ability, sexual orientation, refugee or immigrant sta-tus, age, language or geographical isolation).

The findings of the survey of public participationprocesses in Canadian municipalities and the localprojects will be applied to create a toolkit of publicparticipation methods that can effectively involvediverse women in municipal processes and deci-sions. The toolkit will be useful for non-governmentalorganizations and community organizations as wellas municipal governments.

The project’s results will be available on the Website of FCM’s International Centre for MunicipalDevelopment at:www.icmd-cidm.ca

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Norway

A Woman’s Perspective in Municipal PlanningThe Norwegian government, in cooperation withmunicipal authorities, has carried out a pilot projectdesigned to improve the integration of women intomunicipal life by including their point of view in suchareas as urban planning and design. Although generalguidelines were provided, the implementation variedaccording to participating municipalities. The projectdealt with the design or re-evaluation of the municipalmaster plan.

First, a Steering Committee was created, compris-ing 6 to 8 members: the Mayor and heads of munic-ipal services, a municipal staff representative,preferably an urban planner or designer, and repre-sentatives from interest groups. A balance in thenumber of male and female members was sought.The Steering Committee oversaw various taskforces, at least half of whose members were women.

The draft of an urban plan was prepared and submit-ted for consultation. From the outset, additionalactivities were organized to encourage the partici-pation of women: information about urban planning,promotion of women’s participation in municipalconsultation, training on how to develop an urbanplan and on municipal life in general. Municipalgovernments recognized that use of gender-disaggregated data was important in carrying outthe operation. Guides were also published, includingA Cookbook for Grassroots Planning.

The project produced a number of changes, such as the acceptance by municipalities of the activeparticipation of women’s groups and the implemen-tation of a “bottom-up process” that led to a betterunderstanding of women’s specific needs and, con-sequently, to more project funding.See: Norway in the 1996 database at: www.bestpractices.org

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3. The “Ideal” Women-Friendly City Making a CommitmentThe first step often taken by municipalities is tomake a formal commitment to gender equalitythrough the adoption of a declaration or charter in council. Since 1999, a number of cities around the world have done this by using IULA’s WorldwideDeclaration on Women in Local Government. A munic-ipality ratifying the declaration commits itself to,among other things:

• Strengthening efforts to make equal the numberof women and men in decision-making bodies atall levels and in all policy areas;

• Applying the mainstreaming principle by integrat-ing a gender perspective into all policies, pro-grams and service-delivery activities in individuallocal governments and their representative asso-ciations at national, regional and internationallevels, and to developing methods for monitoringand measuring this mainstreaming work;

• Strengthening international and national coopera-tion among territorial groupings in order to furtherthe exchange of experiences, as well as to deviseand develop methods, policies and strategies thathelp offset barriers to women’s participation inlocal decision-making.

Having a common platform facilitates the monitoringof commitments and the exchange of good practicesamong municipalities at the national and interna-tional level.See Declaration: www.cities-localgovernments.org/uclg

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Creating Helpful Structures and Mechanisms

To carry out gender equality commitments, new structures and mechanisms, together with adequate staffingand funding, are required. These make up an overall system within which the various components interact.The “ideal” women-friendly and gender-equal municipality ensures that all the elements of this system are putinto place.

ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURESAND MECHANISMS

CONSULTATIVE ANDPARTICIPATORY STRUCTURES

POLITICAL STRUCTURES AND MECHANISMS

Municipal Council

1 representative/city 1 representative/borough

Gender EqualityPolicy

Annual ActionPlan

“Women“ or “GenderEquality“ Office

D

Inter-BoroughCoordinatingCommittee

D

G

Time OfficeD

Tools for Equality

Advisory CouncilA

B

ConsultativeCommission

A

ThematicPartnershipCommittees

E PublicConsultationMechanisms

E

FMechanisms forWomen'sParticipation

E Communication and InformationMechanismsC

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A CONSULTATIVE STRUCTURE

The Women’s/Gender EqualityCommission or Advisory Council Some cities set up a commission made up of electedwomen representatives that is mandated to consultwomen’s and citizen groups and make recommenda-tions to council. Others establish an all-women advi-sory council comprising elected representatives,delegates from women’s groups, public servants andcitizens to encourage dialogue between citizens andthe municipal apparatus. These commissions orcouncils are a useful tool for determining the priori-ties of a gender policy and carrying out an annualaction plan. They report either to the municipalcouncil or to the mayor. Within council, a womancouncillor is given political responsibility for thegender issue. At the borough level, the portfolio isalso handled by a member of the borough council.

A MUNICIPAL GENDER EQUALITY POLICY

A commitment to the principle of gender equality isfollowed by the development, adoption and imple-mentation of a Municipal Policy on Gender Equality.This policy sets out the goals, means and resourcesneeded, as well as the municipal structure that willbe responsible for carrying out an annual genderequality action plan. The policy is cross-sectoral bydefinition and will apply to all areas of municipalactivity, including the urban plan, housing, trans-portation and public safety. It may include specific

targets such as fighting povert y, violence againstwomen, women’s safety, access to housing andhomeownership, or access to recreation. Since themunicipality is also an employer, the policy will pro-vide for equal access to jobs and salaries, as well asmeasures for work-family reconciliation to promotegender equality among municipal employees.

AN ANNUAL GENDER EQUALITY ACTION PLAN

The gender policy is concretized in an annual actionplan adopted by council or the municipality’s execu-tive structures. The plan lays out actions and goals,budgets and resources to be allocated, partnersinvolved, a timetable and the expected results. It isexecuted by the municipal administrative structurein charge of gender equality, in conjunction withwomen’s groups, local community and public organ-izations, and women citizens. A mechanism thatcoordinates the various services, boroughs or dis-tricts ensures coherence in the work throughout theterritory and encourages the flow of information andthe sharing of good practices. A regular review of theactions helps determine new priorities and any neededadjustments.

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AN ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE

The Women in the City or GenderEquality Office This permanent structure is placed under the juris-diction of the municipality’s City Manager to ensurethat it makes a real impact on all municipal serv-ices. A team of professionals, assisted by a secre-tariat, is responsible for carrying out the annualaction plan. It coordinates a committee of represen-tatives from the various departments, boroughs ordistricts. Every department and borough appoints aGender Officer. The action plan is drawn up in closeconsultation with women’s groups and with commu-nity and public partners. Various task forces arecreated to carry out projects. The annual budgetcovers recurring operating expenses such assalaries (including those of the secretariat), fundingfor research, evaluations, training and awarenessprograms, as well as a funding program for initiativesby women’s groups and community organizationsthat are focused on women’s empowerment. The allo-cation of adequate human and financial resources isa sine qua non condition for bringing to life the com-mitments made by the municipal council.

The Gender Equality Office is connected to an officecalled the Bureau des temps, or the Time Office.This Office has been created to ensure that the busi-ness hours of public and private municipal servicesdovetail with the population’s various life schedules,such as work, travel, recreation, family activities,studies and shopping. The interconnectedness of thetwo offices improves service delivery by recognizingthe differences in time use by women and men. Thisreduces gender inequality and enhances the qualityof life of both groups.

PARTICIPATORY STRUCTURES

Partnership Committees Thematic task forces may be set up to ensure theinvolvement of women’s groups, community organi-zations and other public and private institutions(such as government agencies, researchers, tradeunions and businesses) in common-interest initia-tives. The task forces, which receive financial andtechnical support from the municipality, can tacklesuch issues as women’s safety, housing or trans-portation. These structures open an ongoing dia-logue between the municipality and women’s groupsand lead to a better understanding of the realitiesand needs of women citizens.

Mechanisms for Public Consultation andthe Promotion of Women’s Participationin Municipal LifeMechanisms for citizen consultation and participa-tion lie at the core of the basic principles of goodurban governance. However, for these mechanismsto be truly accessible, hurdles to women’s partici-pation must be removed. To ensure that womenattend public consultations and that their voices areheard, the municipality takes specific measuresrelated to the schedule of hearings, their location(i.e., access by public transit and safety) and com-plementary services such as child care. An under-standing of women’s realities and needs calls for theuse of other means to solicit their views, includingqualitative research, focus groups, surveys andwalking safety audits.

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COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATIONMECHANISMS

The municipality makes sure that women receivedistributed information about municipal services andurban development projects that have an impact onthe quality of life in neighbourhoods and throughoutthe city. Women’s groups and local partners canhelp reach women, especially those who are isolatedby illiteracy, language or handicaps.

TOOLS FOR EQUALITY

A Gender Perspective in MunicipalManagement, or Gender Mainstreaming Applying a gender perspective to municipal manage-ment, or gender mainstreaming, ensures that the dif-ferent realities and needs of women and men aretaken into account with a view to reducing inequali-ties and optimizing services to the population.Activities that raise awareness and training in gen-der perspective are therefore regularly offered toemployees of municipal services and boroughs, aswell as to all elected representatives and the munic-ipality’s partners. Gender-disaggregated data isused systematically to identify citizens’ needs and toevaluate the delivery of services. This approach iscentral to the gender equality policy. It must beapplied during the preparation of the municipalbudget to ensure that spending and investmentscontribute to the reduction of inequalities while atthe same time facilitating women’s ability toimprove their living conditions (such as access tohousing, transportation, employment, safety andleisure).

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4. A Gender PerspectiveThe Women-Friendly City“Equality does not mean treating all groups the sameway: policies and programs must often treat differentpeople and groups differently. However, the goal andeffect of a policy should be gender equality.”3

The experiences of men and women differ socially,politically and economically. These differences mustbe recognized to achieve genuine equality. With thisin mind, several countries have recently agreed touse a common measuring instrument: the gender-based analysis, also called gender perspective orgender mainstreaming.

Taking a perspective on reality that breaks with thetraditional, supposedly gender neutral, one allows forthe gathering and interpretation of comparativequantitative and qualitative data concerning the dis-tinct realities and needs of women and men. Thisapproach provides an accurate picture of a situation.The goal of the gender perspective is clear: identify-ing and eliminating the causes and manifestations ofinequality between men and women.

Municipal governments and their partners stand tobenefit from integrating a gender perspective into theplanning and execution of their activities. On the onehand, the diagnostic tool allows them to fine-tunetheir activities to the particular needs of men andwomen; on the other, they can ensure that each oftheir decisions has a positive effect on the life ofevery citizen.

In that way, the gender perspective guarantees amore effective management of overall human andfinancial resources because it provides for a targetedresponse to specific needs of the population. An evenmore accurate response to a diverse population canbe achieved by adding indicators such as age, origin,family situation or income level.

3. Gender-based Analysis: A Guide for policy making, Status of Women Canada (1996), Ottawa.

Athéna Polias (The City-Dweller)Pablo Van Momo, April 2004

Four Steps

to Better Understanding and More Effective Action

23

• What are the specific needs of women and men invarious areas of activity ?

• How many women and men head single-parentfamilies within the boundaries of the municipality?

• How many women own houses, rent apartmentsor live in subsidized housing?

• What percentage of men and women use municipalservices (such as public transit and recreationalactivities)?

• What proportion of women and men feel unsafe?

Gender-based analysis helps to answer such ques-tions. It provides municipal governments with a moreprecise picture of the situation. Municipal govern-ments must take the time to ask the right questions.A simple four-step method has been devised to guidethe process.

Assessing the Situation

1Developing an Action Plan

2

4Periodic Reviews

3Evaluating

the Plan

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To carry out effective work, a clear picture of thesituation is required. It should be possible to makean evaluation by sorting quantitative and qualitativedata by gender. This method of gathering and ana-lyzing information can reveal the gaps between menand women for a given situation.

The municipality must first determine whether rele-vant studies or surveys are available, or whethernew information should be gathered. In other words,the most efficient means of collecting relevant infor-mation must be assessed in each case. If nothing isavailable, the municipal government can gatherinformation in various ways, including requests fordata from statistics agencies, research, task forces,public consultation and interviews.

In some cases, it might also consider using internaltools, for example, enquiring about the number ofmen and women who participate in recreationalactivities. Whether the data is to be gathered oralready exists, one thing should be kept in mind: theinformation must cover all aspects of the issue.

Municipal governments must have specific informa-tion that sets out the different realities of men andwomen, since this is the only way of tailoring pro-grams and measures to the specific needs of eachgroup. The use of gender-disaggregated dataensures, among other things, that inaccurate inter-pretations are avoided. When taken out of context,figures can be misleading. For example, an equalnumber of women and men may work in a particularsector; but if the women are restricted to low-levelpositions then they have minor roles in decision-mak-ing and cannot fully engage in genuine leadership.For this reason, the assessment should go beyondthe simply quantitative and examine the place ofwomen in leadership and decision-making positions.

Step 1Assessing the Situation

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When gathering the facts, the municipal governmentmay involve partners, such as the research sector,community groups or the police service, as thesepartnerships may prove useful in obtaining a morecomplete picture of the situation. However, there isone par tnership that is absolutely essential.Municipalities must ensure that the main partici-pants concerned are involved; women themselves.Their various responsibilities provide them with anexcellent ground level understanding of all dimen-sions of the city (environmental, functional, eco-nomic and social.) Women must be involved from theoutset. Effective and smooth-running consultationmechanisms, as well as an alliance with women’sgroups and local organizations, will allow municipalgovernments to reach the greatest possible numberof women. This new way of putting women’s expert-ise to work may require some adjustments, but iswell worth the effort!

Once the municipal government has an accurate pic-ture of the situation, it can interpret the data tounderstand the causes underlying the gaps and moveto remedy them. However, solutions do not always liewithin municipal jurisdiction. In such cases, the rele-vant authority must be identified and urged to imple-ment strategies that improve the living conditions ofwomen in the city. For example, while the effects ofpoverty are visible at the neighbourhood level, solu-tions must emanate from all orders of governmentand from public policies in effect.

The gender perspective dispels a number of myths andprejudices about women and men and may run counterto the opinions of those collecting the data. The mainprejudice, which might become a major obstacle, liesin thinking that services are equitable and accessibleto women because they are delivered to all citizenswithout distinction. This assumption masks the realityof systemic discrimination against women.

Training and awareness-raising programs are neededso that municipal employees support the approachand use it as a management tool to improve the qual-ity of services delivered to the population. Ongoingconsultation with partners (including women in vari-ous roles such as citizens, employees or elected rep-resentatives) and women’s groups is an asset inraising the awareness of city employees, bothwomen and men, and in analyzing the causes of gen-der gaps.

Summary• Obtain gender-disaggregated data• Using the information obtained, prepare an

assessment of the situation as it applies to men and women

• Identify the gaps between men and women• Pinpoint the causes of these gaps to be able

to remedy them

Who should be consulted?Women, women’s groups, community and institutionalpartners (such as central government departmentsand agencies, universities)

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Once properly informed, municipal authorities setbroad objectives that are then broken down intomore specific goals. At this stage, it is important toidentify any positive or negative factors that mayaffect the exercise.

For example, a municipal government decides toencourage women’s access to non-traditional jobs byhiring them in its Public Works department. Themunicipality can readily identify sexual harassmentas an element that may undermine the success ofthe operation. Not only can sexual harassmentaffect women in their job, it can also drive them outof a given employment sector and back into one thatcauses less commotion in their life. If the municipalgovernment does not take adequate measures fromthe start to prevent sexual harassment, the entireoperation could be jeopardized. In other words, thesooner any positive and negative influences on theprocess are identified, the better.

The desired results and the indicators needed tomeasure them must also be defined as accurately aspossible at this stage. Authorities then plan the con-crete steps that need to be taken in consultationwith women and the different partners involved. Theaction will be tailored to the target clientele andtakes into consideration not only gender specificitybut also the specific needs of the various subgroups(including seniors, the disabled and women from eth-nic minorities). If needed, indicators that are specificto gender and subgroup membership may be used.

The financial and human resources required to com-plete the project must also be allocated and respon-sibilities and degrees of accountability assigned toeach participant (e.g., municipal services and sup-port networks). The municipal government must alsoestablish a timetable, ensure that the action plan isimplemented within its scope, and coordinateactions to be taken with its partners.

Remember: putting together an action plan requiresthe full and complete participation of women andgroups representing them. Municipal governmentshave everything to gain by working with women. Itwill help them properly understand women’s life sit-uations, expectations and needs, and consequentlybetter target their actions.

Step 2Developing anAction Plan

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Summary• Formulate an overall objective to achieve gender

equality• Identify specific goals• Specify the results expected• Define the indicators for measuring results• List the actions to be taken• Determine human and financial resources• Assign responsibilities to each intervening part y• Agree on a timetable• Ensure the coordination of activities

Who should be consulted?Women, women’s groups, institutional partners(e.g., central government departments and agencies,universities, etc.), community partners, national andlocal Women in the City networks

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How did the process unfold? Were the objectivesmet? At this stage, the city and its partners assessthe results and analyze why some steps were notcompleted. This evaluation must be as precise aspossible, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. It will help determine whether to maintain, slightlymodify or completely overhaul future objectives andactions in order to reach the overall objective.

Consultation with women and various partnersremains very important at the evaluation stage;everyone provides a different perspective and thiswill help guide the municipal government towardsmore effective decision-making.

Summary:• Analyze the progress of actions taken and follow

up on the timetable• List the steps completed in relation to the spe-

cific objectives, using indicators• Assess any modifications that were made along

the way• Maintain or re-evaluate specific objectives in

accordance with the overall assessment

Who should be consulted?All partners involved at the planning stage

Step 3Evaluating the Plan

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The municipal government re-evaluates the opera-tion at predetermined intervals to ensure it is still ontrack, recognizing that in some cases it might takeyears to bring about the desired changes and tangi-ble results.

Summary• Periodically reassess the situation by using

gender-disaggregated data• Periodically review specific goals and actions

to ensure they still correspond to the originalneeds and overall objective, (i.e., gender equalitywithin municipal boundaries)

Who should be consulted?Women, women’s groups, and other partners asneeded

Step 4Periodic Reviews

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Methods and Tools to Implement GenderMainstreaming

In recent years, a variety of methods have beendeveloped to apply the gender perspective to munic-ipal management and urban planning. Used as diag-nostic, awareness-raising and training tools formunicipal staff, these methods are the subject ofgrowing interest in exchanges among networks andat international conferences.

MethodsIn Montreal in 1999, the Femmes et développementrégional ( Women in Regional Development) commit-tee published a guide for municipalities and regionalstructures that allows local authorities to test them-selves on a grid of the following criteria:

• Social participation: Do traditional social rolesmean that women and men hold different jobsthat might influence their ability to participate in a development program or project?

• Access to resources and benefits of development:Do women and men enjoy the same access toresources and do they draw equal economic,social and cultural benefits from a developmentprogram or project?

• Decision-making, power, control: Do women andmen exert equal influence on the development of policies, programs and projects?

Source: Pour un développement égalitaire sur l’île deMontréal : l’analyse différenciée selon les sexes. www.femmesdemontreal.org/publications (French only)

The 3 R MethodIn 2000, the City of Gothenburg, in conjunction withthe Swedish Association of Local Authorities, begana gender-training program for its municipal staff. TheProcess Management Training Programme in GenderMainstreaming is based on the 3 R Method, whichstands for:

• Equality and parity in Representation;• The allocation and division of Resources;• Realia (analysis of the norms and values behind

policies and the delivery of municipal services).

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In Seville, in October 2003, the International Seminarof the Equality and Gender Unit (Las JordanasInternacionales de l’Unidad de Egualidad de generò)presented the principles of various methodologiesand their practical applications. Methodologiesavailable online include:

• SMART (Simplified Method to Assess theRelevance of Politics to Gender) www.unidadgenero.com/en/default.cfm

• GEM (Gender Evaluation Methodology),applicable to systems of management and to new technologies.www.apcwomen.org/gem/index.htm

ToolsFollowing the first International Conference onWomen in Local and Regional Development in 1998,EuroFEM published a toolkit to encourage women’sentry into local and regional development.www.eurofem.net/ToolkitNet/toolk.html

In Britain, a major study was undertaken into GenderMainstreaming and Gender Auditing in local plan-ning. Five case studies and several pilot projectswere carried out with the aim of building a toolkit tointegrate those perspectives into urban planning anddesign. The absence of gender-disaggregated dataand weak political support from local elected repre-sentatives were identified as the main problems to

overcome locally. Training and awareness-raisingsessions for municipal staff were strongly recom-mended to counter the persistent stereotyping thathinders progress at the district, borough and localservice level.See: The Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit www.rtpi.org.uk/resources/panels/equal-w/toolkit.html

In Gatineau (Quebec), The Observatoire sur ledéveloppement régional et l’analyse différenciéeselon les sexes (OREGAND) has created and regu-larly updates a Web site on activities and resources: www.oregand.ca (French only).

In Brussels (Belgium), Amazone, a national resourcecentre for equality, has developed a Database ofInstruments for Gender Mainstreaming (DIGMA) andin 2003 helped organize seminars on MunicipalEquality Policies for men and women elected repre-sentatives, public servants and women’s groups inthe Brussels region.Info desk section: www.amazone.be

In Madrid (Spain), Generourban, a Spanish languageWeb site and discussion forum has been set up onthe subject of women in the city, gender and urbanplanning: www.generourban.org/

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Making a Commitment

Montreal (Quebec, Canada)The new City of Montreal was created in January2002 by the merger of the 28 municipalities on the Island of Montreal. On February 26, 2002, thenew municipal council unanimously adopted theIULA Worldwide Declaration on Women in LocalGovernment and made a commitment to build on theaccomplishments of the Femmes et ville (Women inthe City) Program of the former City of Montreal.

The commitment to gender equality was reiteratedat the June 2002 Montreal Summit that establishedthe new city’s priorities according to proposalsbrought by the various local stakeholders. Thosebrought by the “women’s” delegation were approvedby all the partners and led to several specific com-mitments by the city:

• To create an advisory council on gender equality,the Conseil des Montréalaises;

• To create a Femmes et ville Office; • To draw up and implement a municipal gender

equality policy; • To apply gender mainstreaming;• To draw up and implement a policy on safety plan-

ning.

A committee made up of representatives of women’sgroups and women municipal public servantsensures that these commitments are honoured. OnDecember 12, 2003, the Montreal Women Working

for Gender Equality forum (Montréalaises en actionpour l’égalité femmes/hommes) was held to reviewthe status of the work and to maintain the mobi-lization of women’s groups and other partners. Theadvisory council on gender equality, the Conseil desMontréalaises, is to be set up in 2004.

Source: Sommet de Montréal section on the City ofMontreal’s Web site: www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/portail_VME/accusoma.shtm and on the site of the City of Montreal’s Femmeset ville Program:www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville

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The Montreal Declaration on Women’s SafetyMunicipal councils may also make commitments byratifying declarations on specific subjects, such aswomen’s safety.

The Montreal Declaration on Women’s Safety makesspecific appeals to cities and municipalities to:

• Put in place local safety policy, planning, andpractices that integrate a gender approach, and which support women’s safety initiatives;

• Provide greater oppor tunities for women’sinvolvement (for example, safety audits), includ-ing formal mechanisms to ensure adequateresources to respond to recommendations andsustain initiatives;

• Create formal mechanisms to increase theparticipation of women in decision-making inlocal governance (elected officials, managers andcitizens);

• Allocate municipal funds to gender equality, com-munity development and poverty reduction pro-grams;

• Ensure transparency and accountability inmunicipal administration;

• Develop international cooperation at themunicipal level including the exchange of good practices and experiences.

Following the first International Seminar of Women’sSafety, Making the Links, held in Montreal in May2002, the Federation of Canadian Municipalitiescalled on its members to ratify and implement theDeclaration.

The Declaration is available in English, French andSpanish on the Women in Cities International site: www.femmesetvilles.org

Liège (Belgium)The City of Liège has adopted a Charter on GenderEquality following its work in partnership with theLiège Coalition for the World March of Women. TheCharter commits the city to drawing up a genderequality plan of action:

“The Communal Council, holding the principle ofequality between women and men

• Considers that a balanced participation of womenand men in the decision-making process isachieved through equal parity in representation inall sectors;

• Commits itself to integrating a gender perspectiveinto all policies, from concept to completion;

• Commits itself to eliminating all forms of discrim-ination by using appropriate structures and instru-ments and by adopting a global and integratedstrategy to promote the equal participation ofwomen and men;

• Commits itself to raising public awareness by dis-seminating images of women and men that breakwith discriminatory stereotypes;

• Commits itself to drawing up a communal plan of action for the equality of women and menresidents of Liège.”

In 2004, Liège established a Femmes et villeCommission.www.liege.be

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Consultative Structures

Barcelona (Spain) The City of Barcelona has set up a citywide Council ofWomen under the jurisdiction of the SocialDevelopment Commission, as well as “women” coun-cils in city districts.

These consultative structures are meant to ensurethe involvement of women’s groups in the imple-mentation of the Municipal Program for Women, thewomen component of the municipal action plan, andthe action plan to fight violence against women.

Their main goals are:

• To integrate women into all the activities of urbanlife, taking their diversity into account;

• To adapt the city to the needs of citizens’ dailylife, recognizing and promoting the contributionsand wishes of women’s groups;

• To reduce the incidence of gender violence andpromote a non-violent city;

• To take women’s specific needs into account inall municipal policies.www.cird.bcn.es/catala/cbcndon/cbcndon1.htm(Spanish only)

Amadora – Greater Lisbon (Portugal)Council Standing Committee on Equal OpportunitiesThis consultative committee includes representa-tives of women’s groups, NGOs and local councillor-advisors and makes recommendations to themunicipal council. It assesses equal opportunitiesprograms and women’s rights policies and watcheslocal government action regarding women’s issues.

The city has set up a network of equal opportunitiescouncillor-advisors in every department and con-ducted studies into women’s specific needs in publicservices.

The mayors and councillors in the municipalities ofGreater Lisbon have taken part in various projects,including the publication of a Guide to Women’sParticipation in Local Power, based on a Luxemburginitiative and setting out “12 Objectives for aMunicipal Policy on Equal Opportunities.”

Source: Guide to the Women’s Participation in LocalPower (in French, English and Portuguese):www.noticiasdaamadora.com.pt/nad/dossieraut.php?codaut=GPLocal

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Gender Equality Policy

San Salvador (El Salvador)The City of San Salvador’s Gender Equality Policyintegrates a gender perspective into all the plans,programs and projects of its Master Plan for LocalDevelopment.

In 1998, a council motion created the GenderEquality Task Force and made public a ProposedPlan for Equality. The task force, with a woman coun-cillor as coordinator, was supported operationally bythe Human Development Directorate. One of themost interesting results of the process set in motionby the task force was its own transformation into aConsultative Commission on Gender Equality, allow-ing it to organize district forums under the themeBuilding Citizenship with Women. The forums wereplanned as a way of involving women in an assess-ment of women’s needs in San Salvador, which thenserved as the basis for the Municipal Policy onGender Equality adopted in 1999. The policy recog-nizes the underpinnings of inequality in gender rela-tions, and states:

“Gender roles have been socially defined and evalu-ated according to the activity of each sex in humanreproduction. The role of reproduction encompassesall the responsibilities and tasks related to the ges-tation and education of children as well as all thoseassociated with the maintenance and reproductionof current and future labour power. This role, directlyidentified with women and confined to the private ordomestic space, is hierarchically lower than the roleof production and is not recognized as having any‘value’.”

These are the mainaims of the Policy:

• To raise the levelof knowledgeand awarenessof gender rela-tions amongCity Hall man-agement andother staff;

• To reform municipal bylaws so as to promoteequal access to all the services and benefits ofmunicipal management;

• To strengthen the influence of the municipality ofSan Salvador on the promotion of a democraticand egalitarian “municipalism”;

• To improve the condition of women by promotingtheir right to property and to access the munici-pality’s productive and communal resources;

• To set up educational and cultural processes thatwill raise women’s self-esteem and promotewomen’s leadership along with egalitarian valuesand non-discriminatory attitudes as basic stan-dards for coexistence in families, neighbourhoodsand communities;

• To strengthen the role of the municipality andinstitutional interaction in citizen safety by pri-oritizing the fight against sexual and domesticviolence.

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The municipality has a number of institutionalstrategies at its disposal to concretize these goals,including:

• Pinpointing gender constraints that prevent orthreaten women’s equal opportunities to enter orbe promoted to leadership positions at City Hall;

• Sensitizing and training City Hall staff in gendermainstreaming and in the specific methodologyrequired for an effective, cross-sectoral imple-mentation of the Gender Equality Policy;

• Assigning qualified human resources to key posi-tions in the institutional structure to ensure thecity’s action on gender equality is effective andefficient;

• Systematically monitoring the implementation of the Policy;

• Establishing partnership with central governmentauthorities and NGOs so as to mobilize institu-tional, human and material resources for the pro-motion of gender equality in the municipality;

• Encouraging targeted personnel to generate amultiplier effect in advocating for the values ofequality and for changes in gender attitudes;

• Encouraging women’s participation and leader-ship in City Hall responsibilities – undertakinganalyses of women’s needs, prioritizing thoseneeds according to City Hall’s powers – as well asin the policies, plans and execution of programs,projects and actions;

• Making City Hall’s official communications, inter-nal and external, a catalyst for gender equality inthe municipality.

The Gender Equality Policy is based on seven areasof action:

• Citizen participation• Education and culture• Work• Health promotion• Safety• Infrastructures• Municipal public services

Each area of action has its own strategic goal andseries of specific actions.

The Gender Equality Policy is executed by theGender Unit, under the jurisdiction of the HumanDevelopment Directorate. The Unit works closelywith members of the Gender Equality ConsultativeCommission, including several women elected repre-sentatives and district gender officers, women andmen. Women’s centres have also been set up in thedistricts to monitor activities intended to encouragethe mobilization and participation of women citizens. www.amss.gob.sv/pages/index.html (Spanish only)

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Gender Equality Action Plans

Buenos Aires (Argentina)Women’s Right to Live in the CityThe General Directorate for Women is a municipalstructure in the Secretariat for Social Promotion,falling under the General Directorate. Its action plan,El derecho de las Mujeres a vivir en la ciudad, aims to:

• Ensure cohesion and coherence in the variousprograms created by previous municipal adminis-trations;

• Identify new concerns of Buenos Aires women;• Adapt and increase services for women by adding

a gender perspective to them;• Advance the integration of an equal opportunities

plan into all areas of action by the City’s gover-nance, including: - Reforms to several laws to benefit women;- Fighting domestic violence (telephone help line

service against domestic violence, two 24-hourtelephone hotlines, shelters and centres forwomen victims of violence);

- Promotion of women’s health;- Programs for women’s rights;- Training programs;- Research and studies into women’s life

situations.

The results have been tangible and reflect a clearimprovement in the quality of life of the women ofBuenos Aires. www.pgualc.org (Spanish only)

Berlin (Germany) The City of Berlin has adopted a specific programwithin the framework of equal gender rights to elim-inate discrimination against women in all socialdomains. The Bureau for the Economy, Work andWomen monitors its implementation. Among itsaccomplishments:

• Availability of childcare;• Advancement of women in municipal public

services;• Higher status for women’s traditional professions;• Education subsidies for women and girls;• Prevention of violence and assistance to women

victims;• Improved social conditions for immigrant women;• Improved job opportunities and training for girls;• Assistance to women and girls with handicaps.

The Bureau’s responsibilities are reviewed annuallyduring revision of the action plan. www.berlin.de/SenWiArbFrau/frauen/index.html(German only)

Santo Andre, Sao Paulo Metropolitan Region(Brazil)As a result of an economic crisis that shook thisformerly industrial city, a Citizenship and GenderProgram was launched by the municipality of SantoAndre in partnership with the Centre for Studies inHealth (CES). The program, aimed at encouragingwomen’s participation in the city’s decision-makingprocesses, drew more than 6,000 participantsthrough its more than 112 discussion groups, aware-ness-raising courses on gender problems and cam-paigns to fight violence against women. bestpractices.org/bpbriefs/women.html

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An Administrative Structure

Paris (France)The Observatoire de l’égalité femmes/hommes,created in 2001, falls under the authority of the Cityof Paris’s Secretary General and within the purviewof Anne Hidalgo, first assistant to the Mayor of Parisin charge of gender equality and the Bureau destemps (Time Office). The Observatoire implementsthe gender policy, taking stock of the needs ofwomen citizens and monitoring equality in employ-ment within the city administration.

A team of eight people handles the responsibilitieswith the help of a network of some 20 gender offi-cers in the boroughs. It also maintains relations withall the administrative authorities and builds partner-ships with civil society and institutional stakehold-ers to carry out projects.

To fulfil its mandate, the Observatoire has set thesegoals:

• Conduct studies and analyses to determine themain areas of inequality;

• Suggest ways and means of reducing theseinequalities;

• Evaluate the actions undertaken.

An early study turned up major work-related dispari-ties (such as salaries, working conditions and unem-ployment) and prompted an action plan for this area.A plan for professional equality is also in the worksfollowing a gender analysis of the division of jobswithin the city administration. Other priority areasinclude violence against women, prostitution andnew forms of slavery. A fund set up to provide finan-cial assistance to community groups working forwomen’s rights and equality also helps carry outprojects in the field.www.paris.fr/fr/citoyennete/observatoire_egalite(French only)

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Time Offices (Bureaux des temps):The Paris Observatoire works with the Time Office,which falls under the same political and administra-tive jurisdiction. Studies and analyses have shownthat the women of Paris do not have the samerhythms, constraints or needs in their use of time asthe men. The Office has the task of improving theway people’s lifestyles, work and family schedules fittogether, with the aim of reducing inequalitiesbetween women and men as well as among the vari-ous demographic groups (such as children, teensand the elderly).

The Time Office concentrates on:

• Improving access to installations; • Providing easier access to public services and to

help with administrative procedures;• Integrating the time perspective into urban

projects;• Encouraging businesses to adapt their hours to

the schedules of their clientele, women and men.www.paris.fr/fr/citoyennete/bureau_des_temps/(French only)

Cities must be careful to ensure that time-related ini-tiatives integrate the gender perspective so thatthey do not end up actually reinforcing gender rolesand related inequalities.

Ministère de la Ville/Dossier temps des villes(French only): www.ville.gouv.fr/infos/dossiers/index.html

French Economic and Social Council, ReconcilingTime Management and City Life, by JP Bailly(French only):www.conseil-economique-et-social.fr

DATAR – Délégation à l’aménagement du territoireet à l’action régionale (French only):www.datar.gouv.fr/Datar_Site/DATAR_Temps.nsf/wSommaire?openview

Maison du temps et de la mobilité de Belfort(French only):www.maisondutemps.asso.fr/plugin.htm

Groupe Chronos, Observatoire de la chronomobilité(French only):www.groupechronos.org andwww.groupechronos.org/chronomobilite.php

City on the Move (Institut pour la ville en mouvement):www.ville-en-mouvement.com

Femmes et enfants : au coeur des nouveaux rythmes.Women and children were the first subjects of jointstudies carried out by the City of Rennes’ Time Officebecause they are the most affected by new workschedules. (French only).www.rennes.fr/index.php?rub=598

Prato (Italy)The Time Laboratory, which is part of the municipalEQUAL project that promotes gender equality, aimsto integrate time organization, service managementand the division of work and family tasks to allowwomen to enter and progress in the job market. Themunicipality of Prato, the Women’s Cooperative(Cooperativa delle Donne), the University of Florenceand the Conser-Macrolotto Association are partnersin the Laboratory, which seeks to involve women inthe project.www.laboratoriodeltempo.org/laboratorio/ (Italian only)

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Participation and Partnership Structures

Local-to-Local DialoguesLocal-to-Local Dialogues were set up in many coun-tries with help from the Huairou Commission toestablish ongoing dialogues between grassrootswomen’s organizations and their local authorities onsignificant local issues. They aim to:

• Build the capacity of grassroots women groups toadvocate for themselves;

• Build the capacity of other organizations andinstitutions to work effectively with grassrootswomen’s groups;

• Create the best possible models for grassrootswomen’s long-term participation in communitydecision-making;

• Strengthen the quality of local communitiesthrough more inclusive democratic practices.

Because each local group operates in a particularcommunity, Local-to-Local Dialogues differ in con-tent and process according to their country and par-ticular situation. Each experience provides anotherexperiment in governance and can be used for com-parison, analysis, and sharing.

The first round of dialogues was completed inDecember 2002. The second set will be organizedaround subject instead of process.

Examples of Local Dialogues:

Cosquin (Cordoba Metropolitan Region,Argentina)The project aimed to initiate a dialogue that wouldlead to a partnership between civil society groupsand municipal authorities. Specifically, it aimed toinclude recommendations brought by women’s andsocial groups into the urban master plan.

Prague (Czech Republic)The project was designed to encourage the settingup of structures where local and municipal authori-ties could work with the network of Czech MotherCentres.

The dialogue deals with issues such as:

• Family policies; • Equal opportunities; • Part-time work;• Urban safety, in conjunction with crime-prevention

organizations;• Unemployment;• Community cooperation;• Participation in public life.

Saratov (Russian Federation)With a view to local self-governance, the projectpromoted local dialogue and a process of citizenconsultation on safety, social problems, unemploy-ment, poverty and women’s housing. The dialogue is a partnership of local women’s organizations,municipal politicians, the Information Centre of theIndependent Women’s Forum and self-governancecommittees.

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Stuttgart (Germany)The project set out to promote local exchanges(partnerships, associations and conferences) amongwomen and men residents, community groups andlocal authorities. It aimed to create a process ofparticipation in municipal decision-making in suchareas as architecture and urban planning, as well asservices to children, mothers, professional women,single parents, the elderly and immigrant women. Source: Campaigns – local-to-local dialogues at:www.huairou.org

Mechanisms for Public Consultation and Women’s Participation in Municipal Affairs

Quetzaltenango (Guatemala)Strengthening Women’s Participation in LocalAuthority to Achieve Gender EqualityHistorically kept out of power, women came in forspecial attention under the current municipal gov-ernment, which has set up the Municipal Women’sCommittee to encourage and strengthen women’snetworks within local groups and in the many activi-ties in which they are involved. To enhance women’sparticipation in municipal development, a space hasbeen created for women-led actions. This plays a rolein various areas, such as:

• Training and education strategies in local politicalparticipation;

• Integrating a gender perspective into municipalgovernance;

• Literacy campaigns;• Reproductive health;• Promoting self-governance;• A documentation centre.

Among other outcomes, the steady involvement ofmunicipal structures gave much credibility to the dif-ferent women leaders in their dealings with variouspartners and with the entire community.www.pgualc.org (Spanish only)

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Projects to Adapt Municipal Services to Women’s Needs

PUBLIC TRANSIT:

“Between Two Stops” Bus Drop-offMany women rely on public transit to get around thecity and any decision to change or reduce servicemust take this essential fact into account.

Several gender-responsive municipalities havemoved to increase women’s safety and their feelingof safety. Fear is one of the main obstacles towomen’s free circulation in the city. In fact, statis-tics show that women use public transit much lessfrequently at night.

In 1989, the Toronto Transit Authority conducted amassive study of safety from the point of view ofwomen at 65 subway and bus stops. The findings ledit to set up an evening drop-off service between busstops that brings women closer to their destination.Other transit authorities in Canada have followedsuit. In Montreal, where women make up 60 per centof transit passengers, the service was brought in ona six-month experimental basis at the demand ofwomen’s groups. Following a very positive evaluation,the Montreal Urban Community Transit Commission(MUCTC) and its partner members from a women’surban safety group, CAFSU (Comité d’action femmeset sécurité urbaine), announced in December 1996that the service would become permanent. The Cityof Laval instituted the service in 1999 and the Cityof Lévis in 2003. Quebec City’s Femmes et villeCommission has studied the possibility of introduc-ing the service in 2004.

The partnership process between women’s groupsand local Montreal authorities that resulted in theBetween Two Stops service was chosen as one ofthe Habitat Best Practices for the year 2000.Source: Integrating a Gender Perspective into PublicTransit, Montreal. www.bestpractices.org

Bangkok (Thailand)Buses for Women Only In May 2000, the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority(BMTA) began running a service for women only. TheLady Bus was introduced in response to numerouscomplaints by women about safety, particularly dur-ing rush hours. Only women and accompanying sonsunder the age of 15 can use the service. Bus driversand fare collectors are male because the BMTAwants them to protect passengers, women and boys,in case of emergencies. The Lady Bus runs as everythird bus on ten routes on the 30th, 31st and 1st ofeach month, between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., namely theevening hours on pay days. The service may beexpanded if the project works.

Japan Economic Newswire; Kyodo News Service, 30 May 2001 (Global Report on Human Settlement2001): bestpractices.org/bpbriefs/women.html

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WOMEN’S SAFETY

Montreal (Quebec, Canada)For the Safety of Montreal WomenSince the right to a safe city is a key corollary ofequality between women and men, it is no wonderthat gender mainstreaming is most often currentlyapplied to urban safety.

During the 1988 public hearings on the master planfor Montreal’s Central District, women’s groupshighlighted the need for a safe city. They also under-lined the need for better housing, day-care andaccessibility, and called for urban planning that wasmore attentive to the problems of balancing workand family responsibilities.

The City of Montreal responded by creating theFemmes et ville ( Women in the City) Program in1990. The safety of women quickly became a priority.The city began by taking stock of the situation.Important differences were found: four times as manywomen (60%) as men (15%) admitted to being scaredof walking alone in their neighbourhoods at night. In1992, the J’accuse la peur (I accuse fear) conferencebrought together women’s groups, public institu-tions, professional men and women and provided acontext to this gap and women’s feeling of fear in thecity. As a result, the city made commitments toimprove women’s safety on its territory. An actionplan was devised, inspired among other things by theToronto experience (METRAC, Safe City Committee).

Several goals were set, including:

• Improving safety for women in city installations;• Devising tools to increase the safety of women

and their feeling of safety;• Developing criteria to ensure a safety-conscious

design of public spaces and buildings;• Facilitating cooperation between municipal

organizations and women’s groups.

Various actions followed:

• Production of a women’s safety audit guide(Guide d’enquête sur la sécurité des femmes enville) to identify the corrective actions needed to increase women’s feeling of safety within theurban environment;

• Organizing safety audits in certain recreationalinstallations (sports and community centres)with women: citizens, city employees, electedofficials, urban planners and journalists;

• Publication of three guidebooks on safety-conscious design and planning: for parking lots,for residential units and for different types ofurban sites;

• Broadening the mandate of the Tandem UrbanSafety Program to include a section on women’ssafety;

• Carrying out an information campaign aimed at men;

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• Taking part in setting up a women’s urban safetygroup, the Comité d’action femmes et sécuritéurbaine (CAFSU), which brings together women’sgroups, community organizations and public insti-tutions such as the police service, the transitauthority, and health services;

• Helping the CAFSU carry out its annual actionplan.

Since 1992, the City-CAFSU partnership has under-taken many actions, including:

• Information campaigns• Forums• Creation of a Women’s Safety Award promoting

local and regional initiatives• Introduction of the MUCTC’s Between Two Stops

bus drop-off service• Development of institutional policies• Production of an activities guide• Evaluation of self-defence courses• Development of training programs and reference

tools such as the Toolkit for Women’s Safety:from Dependence to Autonomy

Worldwide interest in Montreal’s initiatives has beengrowing since the 1990s, and thanks to information-sharing and knowledge-transfer activities, theMontreal strategies have been adapted to munici-palities in Europe, Africa and South America.

These exchanges culminated in the firstInternational Seminar on Women’s Safety, Makingthe Links, held in Montreal in May 2002. The new

City of Montreal used the occasion to launch itsGuide for planning a safe urban environment, theGuide d’aménagement pour un environnement urbainsécuritaire. It also committed itself to honouring theformer city’s initiatives by continuing to improve thesafety of women citizens and to implement a safetyplanning policy throughout the new territory.www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville andwww.femmesetvilles.org

HOUSING:

Vienna (Austria)A Housing Project By and For Women in Vienna(Frauen-Werk-Stadt)To meet the everyday needs of women, a section ofthe city was designed by women architects and plan-ners as part of Vienna’s urban expansion program.The project, started in 1993, was a first step in inte-grating the requirements of women into the develop-ment of the city. Since then, the city has workedhard at integrating the gender perspective intomunicipal governance, guided by the Women’s Officeand the Department of Everyday and Women-FriendlyPlanning and Building.bestpractices.org/bpbriefs/women.html andwww.wien.gv.at/english/

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Quebec initiatives

A number of initiatives have been launched in theprovince of Quebec in recent years to increasewomen’s participation in local and municipal struc-tures.

Le Réseau des élues municipales de la Montérégie(RÉMM)A network of Montérégie elected women representa-tives, the Réseau des élues municipales de laMontérégie or RÉMM, was founded in 2000 as a resultof an action plan by the Montérégie Committee onthe Status of Women in Regional Development(Comité condition féminine en développementrégional de la Montérégie). It is the only network inthe province that brings together all the women may-ors and councillors of an administrative region.

RÉMM’s many actions include: • Strategic and legal training for women candidates

and women interested in municipal politics (inpartnership with the provincial ministry for munic-ipal affairs, sports and leisure);

• Strategic support for elected women representa-tives;

• Working with associations of municipalities toraise the number of women in municipal politicsand support those already there;

• Advocating for issues of collective interest suchas reimbursement of the child care costs of rep-resentatives who are parents, and women’s rep-resentation on the administrative boards ofmunicipal associations;

• Organizing colloquiums and training sessions;• Support for the creation of Femmes et ville

( Women in the City) committees;• Writing guides to reform municipal structures;• Statistical analysis of women’s presence in

municipal politics in Montérégie;• Awareness-raising and training; • Networking abroad (France, Sweden).

www.eluesmonteregie.qc.ca (French only)

The Equal Access to Decision-making Funding ProgramThis program, administered by the provincial govern-ment’s Status of Women Office (Secrétariat à la condition féminine), has a budget allocation of$1 million a year for five years and funds projectsthat prepare women to play a bigger role in localdecision-making, including municipal councils. A listof tools created by local and regional women’sgroups and other community organizations is avail-able online at: www.scf.gouv.qc.ca/index_an.asp

One of these tools is the Women’s Summer School,which is for women who want to stand for municipalelection in 2005. This initiative of the Femmes, poli-tique et démocratie group, in conjunction with l’Écolenationale d’administration publique and a private foun-dation, aims at mentoring 45 potential candidates.www.femmes-politique-et-democratie.com/ (French only)

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Femmes et ville (Women in the City) Commissionsand CommitteesIn 1993, Quebec City became the first municipality inthe province to set up a Femmes et ville Commission.In 2002, the new Quebec City that resulted frommunicipal mergers also created a similar Commissionthat works on:

• Public housing;• Summertime childcare• Safety (including a reissue of the guide to

Walking Safety Audits);• Communication between the city administration

and citizens; • A “between stops” bus drop-off service on request

after 8 p.m.

The City of Rouyn-Noranda created a Femmes et villeCommission in June 2003 and the City of Lévis inFebruary 2004. The Lévis commission is made upsolely of elected representatives, women and men,

while in other cities citizens and community repre-sentatives are also members. Sorel-Tracy andSalaberry-de-Valleyfield have set up Femmes et villecommittees.

Best Practices Contests

Best Practices Contests are among the most effectivestrategies for publicizing various efforts by cities toimprove gender equality and women’s participation inurban governance. Such contests for women-friendlycities have been taking place in the LatinAmerica/Caribbean and the Asia/Pacific regions.

The idea for the contests emerged from a UN-Habitatinternational gender expert meeting that also pro-moted sharing of expertise and the development of aprospective for this area of municipal action.

The First Contest of Gender Responsive LocalGovernments Asia-Pacific (2004) The contest was designed to assess the perform-ance of cities along these criteria:

• Legislative commitments towards gender equality(such as Municipal Codes and Acts);

• Institutionalization of mechanisms which integratewomen’s views into the urban governance systemand contribute to policy recommendationstowards women-friendly cities;

• Systems for promoting affirmative actions forequal representation;

• Specific budgetary allocations and genderperspective budgets;

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• Training of city staff in gender mainstreaming;• Partnership with various stakeholders;• Participation of women, especially the poor;• Project innovation, sustainability, and replicability;• Monitoring and evaluation methods.

The awards to the three women-friendly winningcities were presented on March 8, 2004 at a cere-mony in Fukuoka, Japan.

Cebu (Philippines)Cebu City’s Support for Community Initiatives toRespond to Domestic Violence Program demonstratedthe importance of partnership and women’s involve-ment in resolving this problem. The city’s role inmobilizing partners, developing training programsand promoting cooperation was a key factor in thesuccess of the program, which has been replicatedin 70 other Philippines municipalities and has helpedmore than 15,000 women. Cebu won also becauseof its Institutionalizing Gender in City GovernanceProgram. The city earmarks five per cent of its totalbudget to gender-related issues and runs a fundingProgram for local women’s groups.UN-Habitat Fukuoka Office: www.fukuoka.unhabitat.org and bestpractices.org/bpbriefs/women.html

Visakhapatnam (India)Visakhapatnam was selected for its program thatencouraged illiterate women to take part in a literacyprogram. The program demonstrated the important

coordinating rolelocal governmentsplay in supportingwomen’s efforts toattain their goals.In 2002, 11,000women from 208slums enrolled inthe program with a90 per cent successrate.UN-HABITATFukuoka Office: www.fukuoka.unhabitat.org

Naga (Philippines)Naga showed the importance of legislative actionwith its Women’s Development Code, a collaborativeinitiative between the city government and variouswomen’s groups aimed at creating an environmentthat allows women the fullest opportunity to realizetheir potential. Measures include earmarking budgetheadings for gender concerns, allocating seats forelected women representatives and the creation of atask force to implement the Code. The initiative hasled to greater awareness of the important rolewomen play in the development of the communityand given women a greater voice in the local deci-sion-making process.UN-HABITAT Fukuoka Office: www.fukuoka.unhabitat.org

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Contest on Affirmative Actions Promoting Women’sParticipation in Local Governance – Latin Americaand the CaribbeanContests were held in 1998, 1999 and 2003 in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean. Organized within theframework of the Global Campaigns of the UnitedNations for the Human Rights of Women and Girlsand for Good Urban Governance, they are supportedby UNIFEM, the Urban Management Program forLatin America and the Caribbean (UMP-LAC), andthe Latin American and Caribbean Federation ofWomen in Local Government (FEMUM-LAC). The win-ners’ projects are available, in Spanish, online at theUMP-LAC site.www.pgualc.org (Spanish only)

Women’s Safety Awards 2004Women and Cities International launched theWomen’s Safety Awards following the firstInternational Seminar on Women’s Safety, Makingthe Links, held in Montreal in May 2002. They aredesigned to promote good practices and municipalpolicies on women’s safety and the improvement ofwomen’s sense of safety. They focus on institutionalchange at the municipal level by showcasing goodpractices and policies and disseminating informationon “what works”.

Specifically, the Awards objectives are to:

• Elicit and disseminate information on practicesrelating to women’s safety and municipal gender-based policies in crime prevention;

• Promote local initiatives that include significantelements relating to women’s safety and theimprovement of women’s sense of safety;

• Build capacity of local groups to develop projectsand practices relating to women’s safety and theimprovement of women’s sense of safety.

Two Canadian and two international initiatives willbe awarded in each of the following categories:

• Advocacy, networking and community mobilization;• Capacity-building and training;• Educational programs and public awareness;• Safety planning and design for public spaces;• Municipal gender-based policies in crime preven-

tion and community safety.

The contest drew around 94 applications. Winninginitiatives, announced in May 2004, will be pre-sented at various Canadian and international confer-ences and documented in a publication. They willalso be available online in September 2004 at www.femmesetvilles.org.

The proceedings of the seminar (in French, Englishand Spanish) as well as the Montreal Declaration onWomen’s Safety are also available on this site.

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How Women-Friendly Is Your City?

How advanced is your city in terms of gender equality?

What remains to be done to achieve women’s fulland equal participation and their access to servicesand resources?

Judge your city’s performance – and what you stillneed to do.

To how many of the following items can you checkYES?

Do a self-evaluation!

In ____________________________________________ (your city’s name)

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Political Structures, Mechanisms and Resources YES NO

National laws on women’s rights and gender equality

National laws on gender quotas or parity at the municipal level

Affirmative action policies in municipal political parties

Parity in committees, commissions and para-municipal enterprises

Network of elected women representatives

Council-adopted policy on gender equality (developed through public consultation and carried out via annual municipal plan of action)

Public consultation policies with mechanisms to encourage women’s participation

Policies and commitments to fight violence against women and increase their safety

Gender perspective in all programs (including annual municipal budget and sectoral budgets)

Support of national and international municipal associations (training, networking, etc.)

Administrative Structures, Mechanisms and ResourcesYES NO

Gender Equality/Women’s Office (with adequate human resources and budget), within central administration, in charge of gender mainstreaming

Annual gender equality action plan (with specific goals, indicators, budget)

Training in gender mainstreaming (for elected officials and staff, men and women)

Access to gender-disaggregated data on all urban issues

Gender impact assessment of urban policies, programs and service delivery

Equal opportunity program for hiring (with specific targets for different types of jobs)

Information service in boroughs, neighbourhoods or districts

Process to handle citizen requests and complaints from women and men

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Participation and Partnership Structures and MechanismsYES NO

Women’s advisory council, commission or committee within council to monitor implementation of gender equality policy

Thematic council commissions (with public hearings)

Public consultation process in boroughs, neighbourhoods or districts

Public consultation process with specific mechanisms to encourage women’s participation

“Women” advisory councils in the boroughs, neighbourhoods or districts

City-wide civic education campaigns

Projects and activities improving women’s access to services and resources (e.g., walking safety audits, Local-to-Local Dialogues between men and women elected officials and women’s groups)

Permanent partnership committees on specific issues (safety, transportation, housing) bringing together women’s groups, community organizations and other public stakeholders, men and women

Regular city-wide public assemblies, as well as at the borough, neighbourhood and district level

Total

Results of Your City’s Evaluation How many of these 27 optimal gender-equality andgood-governance measures are already in place inyour municipality?

If you checked YES to between 0 and 7 items, youneed to get cracking and study what other cities aredoing.

You’re on the right road if YES was your answer tobetween 8 and 16 items. Keep up the good work.

YES was your answer to between 17 and 27 items?Congratulations! But please don’t rest on your laurels.

If you think your city would make a good case study,please fill out the online questionnaire at the City ofMontreal’s Femmes et ville site (in French, Englishor Spanish) at: www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/femmesetville

Thanks for your input!

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