Uses of Time

The Barcelona Time Agreement: a city commitment for a healthier, more egalitarian, efficient and sustainable organization of time. 

The Barcelona Time Agreement is a city agreement that promotes the implementation of various actions so that people live and organize their daily life time according to their needs and in a collective framework of coexistence. 

It is a pact that seeks the commitment of the Barcelona City Council, the social and economic organizations of the city (companies, associations, foundations, social agents, professional associations, networks, groups, ...), in order to act together to achieve a social organization of time that gives an effective response to a wide range of interests, typical of a large, diverse and especially active city. 

For all this, the purpose of the Barcelona Time Agreement is to contribute to: 

• Build a city time that responds to the needs of people in their daily lives and that, at the same time, guarantees coexistence, favors social cohesion and facilitates the social participation of citizens. 
• Promote an effective conception of the organization of time as a right of citizenship, based on the protection and promotion of health and intersectional gender equality, so that all people live a daily time that brings them more well-being.  
• To promote a new culture of time in organizations that fosters more efficient models that are more respectful of people and that, at the same time, leads to more satisfactory results and fosters development based on sustainable criteria and gender equality.

For a healthier, more healthier, more egalitarian, efficient and sustainable

The Barcelona Time Agreement aims to make decisive progress in: 

• The harmonization of the different uses of people's daily time. 
• The effective co-responsibility between men and women.
• The facilitation of more social time for citizens. 
• The adoption of more efficient time management models.
• The progressive implementation of the timetable reform.
• The awareness of time as a key factor for people's daily well-being.

Driving Group

In order to make this possible, the Time Agreement asks both the City Council and the organizations that wish to join, to commit themselves to carry out actions in line with the objectives and principles planned in this agreement. 

In order to follow up and develop the project, it counts with a Driving Group, integrated by the following organizations: 

• Barcelona Time Use Initiative for a Healthy Society
• CCOO Catalunya
• Confederació de Cooperatives de Catalunya (COOPCAT)
• Consell de Dones de Barcelona (CDB)
• Consell Econòmic i Social de Barcelona (CESB)
• Federació d’Associacions de Veïnes i Veïns de Barcelona (FAVB)
• Foment del Treball Nacional
• PIMEC Comerç
• Taula d’Entitats del Tercer Sector Social de Catalunya
• UGT Catalunya
• Representants de la Xarxa de Nous Usos Socials del Temps (NUST)
• Associació Salut i Família (Bancs del Temps)
• Associacions federades de famílies d’alumnes de
• Catalunya - aFFac
• CrearSA
• Espai Mediambiental Cooperativa
• Consorci de Salut i Social de Catalunya
• Associació de Professionals de la Gestió Cultural
• de Catalunya
• Associació catalana de recursos assistencials - ACRA
• Viu el teatre
• Associació Catalana de Professionals de Joventut (ACPJ)
• AMAT Immobiliaria
• FIDEM

   

Guiding principles

The principles are the foundations on which the pact of time is built and act as requirements to be fulfilled for all the actions that comprise it. They are the following: 

1. Needs of the people at the center: to identify the needs of people in the context of their daily lives, because the sustainability of life is at the center of the entire social, political and economic process, and health becomes an essential factor for people's daily well-being, which must be guaranteed and promoted.
2. Equity: Adopting equity as a necessary guideline for all actions, in order to move towards a more egalitarian time, aimed at reducing grievances based on gender, social class, origin or functional diversity. 
3. Intersectional gender perspective: To make the intersectional gender perspective the focus of the tool that makes it possible to identify the obstacles to the balanced participation of all people in society and to highlight the origin and consequences of the different axes of discrimination in which it is necessary to intervene. 
4. Life in community and interdependence: To interpret life in community and interdependence - understood in its globality - as the way of conceiving human society, in which people develop, relate and create their links, and from which coexistence and cooperation between the different collectives and the different stages of the life cycle of the individuals that compose it are woven. 
5. Public, private and socio-community sectors: Understanding the complicity between the public, private and socio-community sectors as a strategy that allows to carry out, from the co-production and shared responsibility, actions that translate into more effective results, with positive impacts, and with more scope and incidence. 
6. Barcelona, city of reference for time policies: To conceive the city of Barcelona as the concretion of the space that, with its generic characteristics and specificities, must be taken as the physical framework for all actions, bearing in mind that it is an urbs, the epicenter of a metropolitan area and, also, the reference of a country. 

Objectives

In order to move towards a healthier, more egalitarian, efficient and sustainable organization of time, the Time Agreement works according to the following objectives: 

• To advance in the harmonization of the different daily Uses of Time of people.
• To have an impact on the effective co-responsibility between men and women, emphasizing the equal assumption of responsibilities, and the planning and carrying out of tasks related to the time spent caring for people in the family and socio-affective environment. 
• Facilitate that citizens have more time for political and social participation because they can get involved in common issues and in community initiatives or collective projects. 
• Promote the adoption of more efficient time management models, mainly by companies and organizations, which translate into improved results and the attraction and retention of talent.  
• Promote the progressive implementation of the timetable reform, in order to assume and share the challenge that in 2025 we will live in a city that operates according to more humane and rational social schedules. 
• Contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals, within the horizon of the 2030 Agenda, especially with regard to time poverty reduction, health and well-being, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, and in the construction of sustainable cities and communities. 
• Raise awareness of the need to understand time as a key factor for the daily well-being of people and the community and democratic development of society, especially through dissemination and outreach activities that allow citizens to learn more about this issue, and promote related initiatives that give visibility to experiences that have a positive impact on people's daily time.