The ECLAC Division of Gender Affairs (DAG) participated for the first time in a webinar of the GADeR-ALC Sectoral Network community "Environmental Management and Rural Development in Latin America and the Caribbean", which unites all GIZ projects and programs on environment, forestry, energy and water in Latin America. GIZ's sectoral networks are always open to participation of project partners.
This time, ECLAC seized the opportunity and within the context of the ECLAC-BMZ/giz Cooperation Program, the ECLAC Division of Gender Affairs (DAG) participated in the GADeR-ALC webinar on inclusive, sustainable and intelligent cities with a gender perspective.
At the same time, the webinar was the first event to anticipate the beginning of the new phase of the ECLAC-BMZ/giz Cooperation Program on "Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Cities" that starts in July 2020.
The webinar was an opportunity for exchange between the Cooperation Program (ECLAC-BMZ/giz), the My Transport Program (Programa Mi Transporte), implemented in Costa Rica by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Protection and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Program for the Improvement of Capacities in the Implementation of the NAMA for Sustainable Urban Transport TransPerú.
The webinar was part of a series of webinars organized by the Gender and Energy+ Workstream of GADeR-ALC to bring the different topics together which propose to incorporate the innovative and disruptive gender approach in different parts of Latin America.
The Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) has detected 4 structural knots that expand gender inequality in the region’s economic and productive sector, because in many scenarios, the culture of giving privilege to one gender and to some sectors over another is validated in Latin America.
One of these highly male-dominated sectors is public and private transport, as well as the services associated with this sector, specifically in urban areas, where 80% of the population resides. Both ECLAC and the German Cooperation GIZ have been implementing various initiatives to address the current problems and transform cities into increasingly inclusive, equitable and safe spaces for both genders.
Shreya Kumra, from ECLAC's Division of Gender Affairs (DAG) and counterpart of the ECLAC-BMZ/giz Cooperation Program, preliminarily identified that the region should invest in processes that enable it to recognize women's needs with respect to their mobilization in cities so as to reflect them in the cities' urban planning projects.
"For example, patterns of mobility and access to mobility systems for men and women should be considered: thus, public policy can integrate sensitive aspects such as differentiated participation in citizens’ labor and economic spheres". For Kumra, these data are crucial because they allow the design of sensitive management mechanisms on how to improve current and new infrastructure, affordable and accessible fares, route schedules and even jobs: security staff and/or bus drivers.
In Latin America, more than 50% of the population using public transport are women. And despite their significant participation, their needs are not met by the current system or by the infrastructure required to ensure efficient use of the transport system.
Ana Eugenia Ureña, advisor for the Mi Transporte Program, Costa Rica, shared this data during her participation in the webinar. Ureña took up the points highlighted by ECLAC and added the data and specific actions that have been raised in Costa Rica.
This program has invested part of its technical support to raise gender-segregated data in the transport sector, where the use of mobile applications has been critical in achieving innovative approaches and meeting the needs of female users in Costa Rica.
Together with a cluster of organizations, Mi Transporte is currently working on designing measures to obtain responses that will improve the user experience when using public transportation. "The idea is to give the user the sensation that she is being accompanied in order to prevent and attend to her risks from the moment she leaves her home, work or place of study, while she waits at the bus stop, until she reaches her destination, all with the purpose of improving conditions," Ureña emphasized during the discussion.
Another important point has been the redesign of the stops (bus stations) that are gender sensitive and that contribute to the construction of technical guidelines to be replicated in the national territory.
Peru was another protagonist in this webinar. Nathaly Agurto shared the progress of the NAMA Support Project for Sustainable Urban Transport in Peru, also implemented by GIZ, for which she is a technical advisor.
In this case, the technical advisor mentioned that significant resources have been dedicated to collecting segregated data to generate tools for good governance of the urban sector with a focus on sustainability and gender.
Among the specific actions with which the project has contributed, she highlighted the technical support for the development of a protocol to respond to situations of harassment in public transport and the identification of new opportunities to include more women as workers in the public and private transport sector.
"In 2018, when we carried out the first information survey, we sought to map the participation of women in the sector as users and workers employed by the formal public transportation system," said Agurto.
The advisor also emphasized that the data allowed to show some of the barriers, breaking stereotypes that build up actions of gender violence in this sector, thus creating alternatives that would allow a greater, sustainable and safe inclusion.
