Good Practice

Making Time a Key Part of the Checklist to Promote Institutional Participation

For women of diverse backgrounds and minority groups.

Barcelona City Council
Spain
Local policy

POLICY OBJECTIVE

Remove obstacles to political participation for women of diverse origins and/or minority groups.

CONTEXT

Gender inequalities are intertwined with inequalities based on class origin, religious beliefs, racialization, language, administrative situation, etc, and all lead to unequal access to positions of power. Citizens’ participation, which evidences varying levels of representativeness among effective participants, is no exception, and such inequalities work to exclude women and historically minoritized and/or vulnerable groups. When these groups do manage to participate, inequalities undermine the weight and success of their contributions in influencing political processes and decisions.

This checklist is a tool to incorporate features which are key to promoting women’s participation and ensuring that female voices and contributions to institutional bodies and valued processes are heard. Time is one such key feature. This checklist was created as part of the Intercultural Action Plan of the Ciutat Vella District (2022-2025).

POLICY DESCRIPTION

The checklist is a tool available to district technical staff managing processes and participatory spaces. It allows them to monitor achievement of keys to promoting the voice and presence of women of diverse origins, minorities and vulnerable groups.

According to the checklist for process and participatory sessions:

  • Session times must not coincide with school start and finish times.
  • Start and finish times must be respected.
  • Whenever possible, sessions are doubled (one in the morning and another in the evening) to ensure that more people can participate.
  • Whenever possible, sessions are alternated (the first in the morning, the second in the afternoon, etc.).

KEY ASPECTS

  • Exhaustive.
  • Incorporates time-specific considerations which determine women’s voice and presence.

RESULTS

Implementation currently underway. Policy not yet evaluated.

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