Convened by ECLAC, directors of statistical institutes exchange on gender mainstreaming in statistical production in Latin America and the Caribbean

“It is necessary to continue working to break the statistical silence. Having disaggregated information makes it possible to implement more assertive public policies to reduce the gender gap that affects the lives of women and girls.” This was stated by Lucía Scuro, Senior Social Affairs Officer of ECLAC’s Division of Gender Affairs, during the side event “Strategies for mainstreaming the gender perspective in statistical production in Latin America and the Caribbean,” organized by the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC. The meeting was held on March 1, 2023, within the framework of the 54th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission In New York

During her participation, Lucía Scuro thanked the directors for their participation and highlighted the importance of multilateral exchange spaces to strengthen the leadership of women in the statistical institutes of the region and promote processes of institutionalization of the gender approach in statistical production. .

The event included the participation of Piedad Urdinola, General Director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) of Colombia; Juana María Pantoja, Head of the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) of Cuba; Miosotis Rivas Peña, General Director of the National Statistics Office (ONE) of the Dominican Republic; Sandra Quijada, National Director of the National Statistics Institute (INE) of Chile; and Julieta Brambila General Director of Communication, Public Information Service and Institutional Relations of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) of Mexico; Sara Duerto, UN Women Regional Adviser for Gender Statistics and Francesca Grum, Deputy Director and Head of the Demographic and Social Statistics Section of the United Nations Statistics Division. Rolando Ocampo, Director of ECLAC’s Statistics Division, moderated the event.

Since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the mainstreaming of the gender perspective has been established as a central strategy to achieve equality. This implies integrating the analysis of the different needs of women and men in all dimensions of State policy and action, including statistical production.

Mainstreaming the gender approach in the production of official statistics is crucial to make visible the inequalities in the situation of women and men in all areas of life, as well as to understand the magnitude and intersectional complexities. It is key that mainstreaming tools are present in all phases of the investigations in order to have information that accelerates the achievement of gender equality. However, challenges persist to achieve gender information systems that allow transforming data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into political decisions, as established in the Montevideo Strategy for the implementation of the Regional Gender Agenda.

During the conversation, the Directors of the National Statistics Offices exchanged about the strategies promoted by their offices for the mainstreaming of the gender perspective in the production of official statistics and addressed the main challenges that women face at the head of the national statistics offices. region in terms of leadership and decision-making.

At the opening, Francesca Grum congratulated the region for its commitment to mainstreaming the gender approach and highlighted that it has been an inspiration for other initiatives worldwide, particularly in efforts to include the gender approach in all the work of the Statistical Commission. The representative of UN Women indicated the urgency of identifying the information gaps and taking actions to make measurements that link the processes of climate change and the living conditions of women. She also presented the experience in generating statistics on gender and environment in the Asia Pacific region.

For her part, Piedad Urdinola highlighted the importance of having the Differential and Intersectional Focus Guide as the main mainstreaming tool, and highlighted that one of the main challenges for women in leadership positions is still the balance between the responsibilities of family and work life. She also highlighted the projection effect that the appointment of a woman as head of DANE in Colombia can have for young women in the field of statistics.

Juana María Pantoja announced the creation and launch of the Cuban Observatory on Gender Equality within the framework of the commemoration of International Women’s Day, in alliance with the Federation of Cuban Women. In addition, she recognized the need to make progress on pending tasks such as the calculation of the satellite account for unpaid care work.

In her speech, Miosotis Rivas welcomed the fact that the issue of mainstreaming the gender perspective is dealt with in the framework of the events of the United Nations Statistical Commission, as established by the agreements of the 51st Session of the Statistical Commission. Among the strategies of the ONE of the Dominican Republic to mainstream the gender approach, he mentioned the inclusion of the topic in the institution’s research agenda and the execution of specialized surveys. Likewise, she highlighted the need for greater dialogue between experts from the field of feminist and gender studies and specialists in the production of statistics so that the integration of the gender approach is effective and responds to the needs of the policies of equality.

For her part, Sandra Quijada indicated that in Chile there is an incentive strategy for the inclusion of the gender perspective in all State agencies, of which the INE is also a part, and that within the framework of these commitments the Subcommittee was created of Gender Statistics where goals, guidelines and products are set that guide the work and budget allocations in the public services that produce information. In turn, she indicated that despite the incorporation of more women in leadership positions, labor discrimination and the persistence of gender stereotypes continue to be frequent.

In her speech, Julieta Bramila highlighted the role of statistical operations in strategic issues for the gender agenda in Mexico, such as the measurement of time use, household budget, gender violence, sexual orientation and gender identity, and the importance of implementing suitable methodologies during the information collection process. An example of this is the process of raising the National Survey on the Dynamics of Relationships in Households (ENDIREH), where the people who conduct the interviews (only women) are trained on equality issues and have support throughout the entire process of collecting highly sensitive information such as violence.

Finally, the Director of ECLAC’s Statistics Division, Rolando Ocampo, stressed that equal access for women in leadership positions is essential on the road to equality. He thanked the panelists for their participation and called for further study of the issue of gender mainstreaming in statistics in other multilateral spheres, highlighting the opportunity presented by the XII Meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas, which will take place in Santiago, Chile in the second semester. of this year.