There are many factors that influence women’s economic participation. In Mexico City, the Government has been working toward the creation of the care system to guarantee the right to care by providing care services to children, the elderly and people with disabilities, while appropriately empowering women. Through expanded public service offerings, the Government of Mexico City will reduce the overload and disproportionate distribution of care work that is done mostly by women and girls. However, knowing where to allocate resources and place new services to reach the most people, particularly those in most need of the services, remains a challenge.
After developing an approach to use geospatial intelligence to make recommendations on the placement of early childhood education centers through combining administrative, geospatial and crowdsourced data, the Government of Mexico City, Women’s Ministry, GIZ and ProsperIA worked together to expand the approach to cluster care services. Using the IncluIA platform and increasing the amount of data fed into backend of the platform, Mexico City’s Women’s Ministry can identify which areas meet the definition of complete care cluster, which areas have the minimum defined infrastructure, and which areas have the potential to meet this definition but are still under resourced. The platform then can analyze which services and infrastructure needs should be prioritized in different areas, empowering decision-makers throughout the Government of Mexico City. This is made possible using large quantities of data which feed the platform.
The approach contributes to the efforts of the Women’s Ministry of Mexico City to create policy in the pursuit of recognize, redistribute and reduce care work, but also overlaps into other government functions as well. With the platform accessible to all of Mexico City’s policymakers, departments focusing on child welfare and education, poverty reduction, economic inclusion, reducing hunger and other priority topics can also benefit. This scalable approach shows how it can be adapted to work towards many Sustainable Development Goals across all ministries in Mexico City, as well as scaled beyond to the national government. Besides the focal point of SDG 5 Gender equality, the case primarily seeks to address SDG 10 Reduced inequalities through enabling policymakers to know where resources can be efficiently allocated to communities most in-need of them. The map is extremely innovative and cost-effective, utilizing both cutting edge geospatial intelligence technology and existing administrative data or inexpensively crowdsourced data to inform the approach. Thus, expanding the data in the map throughout government seeks to have the most benefits for citizens of Mexico City.
Mexico City’s Constitution was a landmark document going into effect in 2017, guaranteeing residents rights to the city through human, economic, political and social rights. The Constitution itself covers many topics such as care, financial inclusion, nutrition and education. This aspirational document is somewhat of a compass into how the city strives to treat its citizens and ensure they are guaranteed the right to the city. Mexico City, however, still must make progress to achieve this, with an emphasis on reducing inequalities in the city.
In Mexico City, as stipulated in article 9 of its Constitution, all persons have the right to life-sustaining care. This implies that the government must guarantee the conditions required for people to exercise this right. The government has therefore defined “Circuitos de Cuidado,” or care cluster, in order to understand existing care-related services and infrastructure. The following infrastructure was considered when establishing what a care cluster should have:
In addition to these services, other criteria are considered. The proximity of the services must be within a 1600-meter radius, or about a 15-minute walk. The time flexibility of available services is also an important aspect of the cluster care services, particularly whether or not services are available when needed outside of other work or personal activities. Finally, coordination of services between nearby facilities for the use of multiple services by both caregivers and those in care is necessary.
The map related to this project, is deployed in IncluIA, a geospatial intelligence platform for policymaking: This map was developed for the Women’s Ministry of Mexico City through consultations with ProsperIA and GIZ in order to address care infrastructure in Mexico City. The platform allows to integrate a wide range of data sources including administrative data such as the National Statistical Directory of Economic Units (DENUE), the Population and Housing Census 2020, the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditures (ENIGH) 2020 and the Characteristics of the Urban Environment 2020. Additionally, the platform can incorporate satellite imagery to create micro-territorial units within a map of the city in order to utilize spatial intelligence for its recommendations and analysis if the data did not allow for this.
The platform works by analyzing the data fed into it and giving recommendations of priority areas for infrastructure, additionally capturing population statistics such as socio-economic status, density and income. This allows for the priority of need-based allocation of resources. Policymakers are then able to quickly and cost-effectively analyze recommendations made based on data and make decisions accordingly. The data that feeds the platform therefore becomes a primary enabler for policymakers to address inequalities in Mexico City.
After establishing the definition for consolidated and minimum cluster care services and ensuring the appropriate data was fed into the platform, a third category was established as potential minimum cluster care services. These are areas which have three of the four components required to be considered a minimum cluster and are therefore high priority areas to meet the minimum standard set. The platform then uses spatial intelligence to analyze Mexico City, finding that there are 6 consolidated cluster care services, 117 minimum clusters, and 89 potential minimum clusters. The criteria for defining what qualifies as a minimum care cluster were developed collaboratively by experts from various public offices within the city's government, all of whom are members of the Inter-institutional Commission of the Mexico City Well-Being Care System.
The 89 potential minimum cluster care services are found throughout Mexico City, with the greatest clustering in Tláhuac, Xochimilco, and Tlalpan, as well as in the periphery areas of Coyoacán, Gustavo A. Madero, and Venustiano Carranza. However, needs were highly variable among the areas, Completing the 89 potential clusters to become minimum clusters requires 21 community centers, 16 early childhood education centers, and 14 elderly care services. However, the most needed and least supplied infrastructure to ensure a completed care cluster is full-time schools, of which 38 are needed.
Dropdown: Placing Primary Schools: The map shows 38 points in the city where zones of potential could become minimum zones with the addition of a new full-time primary school. IncluAI then makes recommendations based on the number of potential people that would be served alongside demographic data helping to define need. The system made 5 recommendations of highest priority for new primary schools, 4 based in Tlalpan and Xochimilco, and 1 in Álvaro Obergón. If implemented, the completion of the minimum cluster care services in these locations would benefit approximately 200,000 people.
Policymakers in Mexico City now have an incredibly powerful tool to rapidly assess the needs of communities and deploy resources to address inequalities in access to care infrastructure. The platform empowers the Women’s Ministry to inform policymakers on the uptake of data and work across different government functions to address highly targeted infrastructure needs within the city. The use case provides key recommendations to the Women’s Ministry to promote better and more equitable access to care services. Using data, policymakers are empowered to confidently deploy resources to serve the most people as well as address inequalities. The platform bridges data gaps through combining data resources and providing an understanding of the challenges women face. Policymakers therefore can address these concerns directly, using data as evidence for better decision-making.
As the platform scales beyond its initial intention, data can continuously be used and integrated as it becomes available. Updated administrative data or new crowdsourced data can empower policymakers to adapt and respond to incoming needs of citizens. Additionally, employees in the public sector in Mexico City are currently undergoing capacity-building activities focused on how to integrate the platform and data into their daily work. As more people become aware of the platform and instructed on its uses, data will be more fully part of governance processes in Mexico City, at all levels of decision-making.
