Barcelona City Council is a founder member city of the Rainbow Cities Network. This network was set up in 2011 together with Amsterdam, Cologne and Turin. It currently has 55 member cities. Its purpose is to exchange good practices, actions and initiatives between member cities with the aim of increasing the impact of LGBTI policies.
The most recent Rainbow Cities Network events were held in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) in 2016, Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2017, Barcelona (Spain) in 2018, Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) in 2019, Bergen (Norway) in 2021, Rotterdam (The Netherlands) in 2022 and Reykjavik (Iceland) in 2023.
This year it will be held on 25 and 27 September in Helsinki, Finland. Over the two days, representatives of the different participating cities will debate issues related to sexual and gender diversity in local public policy, internal organisational matters and the strategy the Cities Network is to adopt.
Some of the issues that will be discussed in these groups include: public LGBTIQ policies and statistics; good data collection practices; access to healthcare for LGBTIQ+ people; projects for young people; strategies to combat workplace discrimination; and sport among LGBTIQ+ people.