Case Downloads
Document Title
PDF (800kb)
Further ressources
Discover more about DPPD
www.undp.org
Discover more about DPPD
www.undp.org
Discover more about DPPD
www.undp.org
Country
MexicoProJECT YEAR
2021 – 2022
STAKEHOLDERs
Women’s Secretariat of Mexico City Gov-ernment, GIZ, UNDP Accelerator Labs
KEYWORDS
Open Data, Data Integration, Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Positive Deviance, Public Safety, City Planning
Region
Latin AmericaSECTOR
Public SafetyDATA SOURCE
Open data, Government data, Non-public data
In Mexico, most girls and women experience violence in public spaces. This violence limits Mexican women’s full participation in public life. Some areas of Mexico City perform better than others when it comes to keeping women safe
To understand what makes some public spaces safer than others in Mexico City, GIZ adopts a Positive Deviance approach. Data mapping and homogenous grouping enables direct comparisons of similar areas . A combination of open datasets and qualitative data allowed for identification of positive deviants
Through the innovative use of data, actionable recommendations to creating safer public spaces for women were identified. The Positive Deviance approach can be replicated by city planners and other government officials for city planning and public policy making. The project opened and demystified data for government agencies in Mexico City, strengthening a data-driven culture
of women in Mexico have experienced some form of sexual violence in public spaces.
In Mexico, two-thirds of all girls and women above the age of 15 have reported experiencing at least one incident of violence in their lifetime.
The Data Powered Positive Deviance (DPPD) method focuses on outliers, or positive deviants, and seeks to discover why some data points perform better than others. In this case, why some public spaces are safer for women.
On average, 11 women are murdered daily. Between 2000 and 2019, most of the victims were women between the ages of 20 and 24. In 2019, more than 50% of female homicides occurred in public spaces.
Violence against women at the community level, which is perpetrated by an individual or a collective unknown to the victim, occurs in streets, parks, and, to a lesser extent, on buses, minibuses, or subways. The attacks that occur on the street are mainly sexual (66%) and include catcalling, bullying, stalking, sexual abuse, rape, and attempted rape. However, 78% of women and girls over 15 years old do not report these incidents.
This problem is relevant because it limits women’s freedom of movement and restricts their right to the city, which is stipulated in Mexico City’s Constitution. Additionally, it limits women’s access to work and education opportunities, access to essential services, their participation in cultural and leisure activities, and their full participation in public life.
It is in this context that the Women’s Secretariat of the Mexico City government, GIZ’s Data Lab, and the UNDP Accelerator Labs began a project to identify areas in Mexico City where women are safer — with a particular focus on public spaces. The results were presented at a session chaired by Mexico City’s Women’s Secretariat, which was attended by representatives of 16 government agencies of Mexico City.
“The recommendations [from this research] serve to strengthen the work and strategies that government agencies already have underway to improve the security of public space for women”
— Ingrid Gómez Saracíbar, Head of the Women's Secretariat