The Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, participated on November 23 in the launch of ‘CHANGE‘ (City Hub and Network for Gender Equity), the world’s first international network of cities in support of gender equity. The network brings together Barcelona with Los Angeles, Mexico City, Freetown, London and Tokyo -the six co-founder cities- with the aim of sharing best practices in tackling sexism, misogyny and gender-based injustice.
CHANGE will promote innovative approaches to dismantling barriers to gender equality while ensuring that it remains a focus for cities around the world. The work of the network will explicitly acknowledge and seek to respond to intersecting inequalities based on race, religion, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression.
The launch event, which was held online, consisted of a dialogue moderated by Inga Beale which also featured the participation of Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles; Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Mayor of Freetown; Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London; Claudia Sheinbaum, Mayor of Mexico City, and Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo.
Ada Colau remarked the feminist policies that have been carried out since she is in office, highlighting the creation of a specific department of Feminisms and LGTBI and a department of gender transversality dedicated to integrating the gender perspective in all policies promoted by the City Council. “We must bring feminist policies to all spheres of government, from the budget to urban planning, also cultural policies, to achieve parity in programming,” she said.
The mayor of Barcelona also stressed that “unfortunately the economic crisis does not affect men and women equally” and remarked that “the need to put care in the center and value the tasks of caring for children and the elderly, which often have been invisible and unpaid “, an objective that she exemplified with the creation of the Barcelona Cuida Space.
On the other hand, for Sadiq Khan “London simply wouldn’t be the city it is without the contribution of courageous women throughout its history. I am a proud feminist and while I know that progress has been made towards gender equality, it is clear that too many women still face barriers to success and are now facing increasing challenges from the impact of Covid-19″.
The first presidency of the network will correspond to Los Angeles, where, under the leadership of Mayor Eric Garcetti, the priority will be harnessing the collective power of cities to transform services and systems to the benefit of all. Member cities will help create systemic change by identifying disparities and implementing initiatives to address local needs.