Gender Inclusive Cities: Increasing Women’s Safety by Identifying and Disseminating Effective and Promising Approaches to Promote Women’s Equal Access to Public Spaces (2009 - 2012)
This programme is funded by the UN Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women. It is being administrated by Women in Cities International (WICI) and is being implemented by four international project partners in cities across the globe:
• International Centre and Network for Information on Crime in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
• Jagori in Delhi, India
• Information Centre of the Independent Women’s Forum in Petrozavodsk, Russia
• Red Mujer y Habitat de America Latina in Rosario, Argentina
The aim of the programme is to create cities that are inclusive and respect the right of all people, including women, to live, work and move around without fear or difficulty. Gender Inclusive Cities seeks to identify the factors that cause and perpetuate inequalities and exclusion, as well as the policies and programme approaches that enhance women’s inclusion and “right to the city”. The first stage of this programme consists of knowledge-generation using the methodological tools of mapping, research and review. Afterwards, WICI, in partnership with local governments and NGOs, will use this knowledge to pilot interventions designed to reduce the public vulnerability and exclusion women and girls face. Pilot interventions will also promote women’s and girls’ access to and understanding of their rights.
Action Research Project
on Women’s Rights and Access to Water and Sanitation in Asian Cities (2009
– 2011)
This research project, funded by the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC), focuses on governance issues and women’s involvement in
decisions affecting water and sanitation (WATSAN) in slum areas in Indian
cities. The project aims to test the use of the women’s safety audit tool
(a well-developed and tested methodology for women to use to engage their
community in safety initiatives) to explore possible changes in local
governance that can better meet the needs of women and girls living in
slum areas. This initiative is being implemented locally by WICI’s partner,
Jagori.
Creating Safer Communities for Marginalized Women and Everyone (2007 – 2010)
"Creating Safer Communities for Marginalized Women and Everyone" is funded by Status of Women Canada. This project aims to build partnerships between local women's groups composed of marginalised women and their municipalities. Partnerships are formed through the joint implementation of safety approaches to create more secure communities for marginalized women. The main activities in this project are:
• Designing and implementing training on the development and execution of women’s safety audits with four women's organisations located across Canada. Each organization that is participating is working with a target group: Aboriginal women, elderly women, disabled women, and immigrant and visible minority women;
• Implementing three safety audits in each of the four Canadian communities with the respective women’s organization and target group;
• Providing training on partnership-building with municipalities for the use of safety approaches and for women-led community improvements;
• Drafting and disseminating a report on findings of the project, with a special focus on the experience and adaptation of safety approaches to each target group of women.
The four Canadian women’s organizations involved in ‘Creating Safer Communities for Marginalized Women and for Everyone’ are:
• Action Femmes handicapées (Montréal, Québec)
• Centre des aînés de Gatineau (Gatineau, Québec)
• Women of the Dawn (Regina, Saskatchewan)
• Catholic Crosscultural Services (Peel, Ontario)
Knowledge Asset on
Safe Cities and Communities for Women and Girls to Live a Life Free of
Violence (2008 – 2009)
In partnership with Red
Mujer y Habitat America Latina, WICI has created an online “Knowledge
Asset” about safe cities and communities for women and girls. This project
was produced for the UNIFEM Virtual
Knowledge Centre to End Violence Against Women and Girls and is designed
for use by women’s and community organizations, government bodies, planning
and transportation officials, academics and researchers, public service
workers and local women, the knowledge asset focuses on providing accessible
“how-to” guidance on the process for creating safe cities and communities.
Visit the Safe Cities portion of the website here.
Women's Safety
Audits: What works and where? (2008 – 2009)
WICI, funded by UN-HABITAT, has recently undertaken an international comparative
evaluation study of the women’s safety audit tool. Using a literature
review, as well as surveys and interviews, we have produced a report which
identifies:
• What women’s safety audit strategies work in what contexts
; • What challenges exist internationally in the use of women's safety
audits as a tool to (a) prevent urban violence and (b) to empower and
increase women's involvement in governance;
• What kinds of concrete outcomes result from the use of women’s safety
audits in terms of (a) design changes and (b)strengthening women's involvement
in local planning and governance.
A copy of the publication is available here.
UN-HABITAT Global Assessment on Women’s Safety (2007 – 2009)
Funded by UN-HABITAT Safer Cities Programme, the Global Assessment on Women's Safety was a collaborative effort between the Huairou Commission and its member networks WICI and Latin American Women and Habitat Network-HIC. As a first step, the International Women’s Safety Survey was developed and distributed to collect information on successful practices and tools. Survey results were compiled into a draft report which was shared at the International Conference on the State of Safety in World Cities 2007 in Monterrey, Mexico from October 1st – 5th, 2007. The survey was then re-distributed to a wider network and a second, more complete report on the results has recently been completed.
A copy of the publication is available here.
Networking Events of Women in Cities International
at the World Urban Forum 3, Vancouver, June, 19 to 23 2006
To assist in the facilitation of a gender-inclusive approach to the
World Urban Forum, Women in Cities International in partnership with the
Toronto Women's Call To Action, the National Network on Environments and
Women's Health (NNEWH), the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM),
UN -HABITAT - Safer Cities, Action Canada for Population and Development
(ACPD), AECI, UNIFEM, Red Mujer y Habitat Lac, the International Centre
for the Prevention of Crime and the Huairou Commission, organised four
linked thematic networking sessions building on current work around women's
safety and gender mainstreaming. The themes of the four networking sessions
were:
Download the report from the National Crime Prevention Centre (Canada) on lessons learned from the four networking sessions held during the World Urban Forum in Vancouver, June 19 to 23 2006 : Moving from the Margins - Actions for Safer Cities for the Full Diversity of Women's and Girls: Lessons for Increasing the Visibility of Crime Prevention at the Local Level ( PDF - 257Kb).
Women In Cities International designed an on-line discussion forum in
order to assist in developing the thematic statements presented in Vancouver
at each of the 4 networking workshops. This forum was envisionned as the
beginning of a dialogue to share information, experiences, and to make
recommendations for future cooperation amongst participants after the
WUF III. To go to the forum website and consult the content of
these exchanges and the related documentation, click
here.
Building Community-Based Partnerships for Local Action on Women's Safety
Download the guide in PDF (480Kb): Building Community-Based Partnerships for Local Action on Women's Safety
Overview of the project:
The goal of this initiative is to increase the involvement of women's organizations (or community-based organizations) in the public policy process. This pilot project seeks to develop effective and sustainable partnerships between women’s organizations and municipalities (and they could include other public bodies such as youth organizations, schools, health clinics, etc.) to promote women’s safety in communities. It focuses on engaging women in decision-making processes at the municipal level for addressing the issue of violence against women.
Women in Cities International will develop a framework for creating sustainable partnerships between women's organizations, municipalities and other public bodies on women's safety. The framework would be tested and implemented in 6 pilot communities across Canada. The pilot phase of this project is to get concrete, constructive feedback from the field before widely distributing the framework for use across Canada and around the world. The project is funded by Status of Women Canada.
The 6 pilot communities will monitor and evaluate their experience in using the model-framework on a regular basis. Pilot sites are requested to send progress reports and write a follow-up report a year after implementation. Building on these individual evaluations, representatives from the 6pilot communities will attend a Workshop to be held in conjunction with the World Urban Forum III in Vancouver in June 2006. Pilot sites will be offered the unique opportunity to participate in an international information exchange. The Workshop will also allow the 6communities to exchange information and collectively evaluate the success of the process of building partnerships between local women’s groups and municipalities.
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