This Monday saw the start of the annual summit of the City Hub and Network for Gender Equity – CHANGE, the first international city network to provide support for gender equality and share good practices for combating sexism, misogyny and injustice for reasons of gender, as well as defending women's rights.
The three-day meeting will serve to share experiences and discuss policies, strategies and practices to transform cities into fairer, more sustainable, inclusive and efficient spaces. Cities are the best places to identify inequalities and implement initiatives that tackle the needs of citizens more directly.
Besides attending the internal sessions, the summit’s participants will also be able to get a first-hand look at some of the services and facilities reinforcing Barcelona’s position as a leading city for equality policies in terms of innovation and the sound, rigorous nature of the initiatives it implements. They will be visiting relevant municipal services such as the Assistance, Recovery and Shelter Service (SARA), which offers specific outpatient care for victims of gender-based violence; the PLURAL Masculinities Centre; Barcelona Cuida, the information and guidance centre for all caregiving resources available in the city; LIDERA by Barcelona Activa, which promotes training for the inclusion of women in the business world, and the Escola d’Estiu del Temps [Time Summer School].
Barcelona chairs the network
The network was created in November 2020, and Barcelona is chairing it for two years. Since then, to the six founding cities, Barcelona, London, Los Angeles, Freetown, Mexico City and Tokyo have since been joined by Buenos Aires, Bogotà, Melbourne, Stockholm, Louisville and Quezon City.
Barcelona’s leadership will continue to make good use of the network’s collective power, which is growing by adding cities that prioritise the transformation of their policies with measures to combat inequalities.
In its new role as chair of the network, Barcelona is hosting this year’s Summit, which is being held from 10 to 12 June, with sessions in the District Offices of Ciutat Vella and visits to strategic services and facilities for the city’s gender equality policies. The annual summit brings together municipal representatives involved in the areas of feminism, equality and care, as well as economic promotion and employment. Technical staff and specialists from all member cities will also be attending, along with those from various organisations that support the network’s efforts.
The network’s future challenges
After more than four years of work, the network continues to promote innovative perspectives that break down gender-equality barriers while also ensuring that this issue continues to be a focus for cities all over the world. The network denounces the fact that women all over the world continue to face innumerable forms of discrimination, such as a lack opportunities, the wage gap, physical and sexual violence, a disproportionally high number of unpaid jobs and scant political representation
CHANGE is currently developing projects to explore new solutions and options for tackling key issues in the area of gender equality. With this goal in mind, a gender data project has begun that is working on the areas of gender-based violence and caregiving, as well as designing an initiative focusing on gender, caregiving and the impact of climate change.