The following article is authored by Ramya Emandi, Jessamyn Encarnacion, Sofia Olofsson.
- Citizen-generated data (CGD) fills gaps in conventional data and amplifies diverse voices, enhancing public governance and challenging power dynamics by highlighting experiences often missed by traditional data sources.
- An inclusive gender data value chain is crucial for fostering trust, promoting civic engagement, and ensuring that gender data is used effectively to inform policies and programs.
- Ethical guidelines are vital to ensure the rights and well-being of women and girls, contributing to the credibility and sustainability of CGD.
- Collaborations with diverse actors, including CSOs, academia, and the private sector, are necessary to address gender-specific needs and integrate gender-disaggregated data into policy frameworks.
In the data revolution era, citizen-generated data (CGD) addresses gaps in conventional data and amplifies diverse voices, enhancing public governance and challenging power dynamics (Meijer and Potjer, 2018). Collaborating with citizens and integrating CGD improves gender data, highlighting voices often 'left furthest behind' and revealing experiences traditional sources miss. Gender data, disaggregated by sex, helps governments understand women's progress and challenges, informing policies and programs. Globally, CGD initiatives are growing. For example, the Kenya Statistical Quality Assurance Framework provides quality criteria (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2022), while Canada (Statistics Canada, 2021) and the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2022) offer guidelines for CSO data quality in SDG reporting. UN Women developed a framework for mainstreaming gendered CGD (UN Women, 2020).
Ethical considerations in CGD require attention across the data value chain. Balancing CGD's potential to improve outcomes for women and girls with challenges like privacy and human rights infringements is essential (UN Women, 2020). Ethical guidelines ensure the rights and well-being of women and girls, contributing to CGD's credibility and sustainability (UN Women, 2018). Citizen data empowers individuals to enhance inclusive policies, making them active co-creators in the gender data ecosystem. Beyond the need for inclusive gender data, an inclusive data value chain is also required. This article explores fulfilling this vision, emphasizing citizens' active role as data co-creators.
Citizens as Co-creators of Gender Data
Citizen involvement in the data chain enhances decision-making evidence and bridges the trust gap between citizens and governments (OECD, 2020). Transparent and inclusive CGD initiatives foster trust and responsive interventions aligned with community needs, boosting civic engagement. Empowering individuals as gender data co-creators balances power dynamics. Progress can be achieved through:
1. Gender Data Literacy: Promoting data literacy among women and marginalized groups enhances their ability to contribute meaningfully. Tailored programs, considering literacy levels and cultural nuances, equip communities with skills for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting gender data. Workshops and educational campaigns foster ownership and confidence in gender data generation.
2. Accessible Technology: Providing user-friendly technologies such as smartphones and data collection apps ensures active participation. Inclusivity is enhanced by multilingual offerings, voice recognition, screen readers, and adjustable font sizes. Technology should facilitate, not hinder, participation, crucially addressing the gender digital divide to ensure equal opportunities for women in benefiting from technological advancements.
Inclusive Gender Data Value Chain
A participatory gender data ecosystem promotes collaboration and engagement among stakeholders, emphasizing citizen involvement across the gender data value chain (Data2X, 2018):
a. Needs-based Gender Data Collection: Citizen-led initiatives empower individuals to generate gender data by involving them in needs specification, ensuring accurate representation aligned with community priorities. Such as, the UNODC and World Vision's 'Mobile Caravan' project in Senegal engages victims in data collection to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation (UN Women, 2020).
b. Empowered Gender Data Analysis: Accessible tools like user-friendly data visualization platforms enable individuals to interpret data. Tailored capacity-building programs, such as workshops and online modules, integrate marginalized groups into data analysis, yielding insights on issues important to them.
c. Gender-sensitive Data Presentation: Clear presentation of gender data is crucial. Guidelines include displaying women and men side by side, using clear terms, rounding numbers, and avoiding gender-blind totals. Consistent colors and simple charts enhance effectiveness (UNSD, 2016), overcoming varying data literacy levels.
d. Gender Data Dissemination and Access: Integrating gender statistics into policies and programs and disseminating them through community meetings, digital platforms, and local media fosters inclusivity beyond sex-disaggregated data limitations.
e. Gender Data Use: Recognizing citizens, communities, and policymakers as key users of gender data is essential. Citizens leverage data to advocate for their needs, while policymakers use it to inform targeted interventions, promoting informed decision-making and empowering communities. For example, in Albania, involving non-state actors in the data value chain improved data on violence against women, leading to advocacy and legal changes (Ross, 2020).
Broader Gender Data Ecosystem
Promoting a participatory gender data ecosystem involves diverse actors beyond NSOs and national statistical systems (Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, 2021):
a. Partnerships: Collaborations with CSOs, academia, and international institutions must prioritize gender sensitivity, incorporating methodologies that address disparities. For instance, the Leave No One Behind Partnership in Nepal focuses on gender-specific indicators in its CGD toolkit (Leave No One Behind Partnership, 2023).
b. Private Sector Engagement: Partnerships with the private sector should explicitly consider gender implications, especially in designing information collected through citizen interactions.
c. Policy Integration: Policymakers need to address gender-specific needs and priorities, prioritizing gender-disaggregated data in data sharing mechanisms to inform policies. For example, a UN Women project in Kenya established the Inter-Agency Gender Statistics Technical Committee, which conducted a baseline study on women's access to agricultural finance, leading to policy and financial revisions by the Kenyan government (UN Women, 2020; Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, 2019).
These initiatives signify a transformative shift in CGD. Enhanced data literacy and accessible technologies empower individuals as active co-creators of data. Another notable example is HarassMap in Egypt, an interactive map addressing sexual harassment by enabling victims and witnesses to share their stories, highlighting the issue's breadth (HarassMap).
Way Forward
The push to supplement conventional data with CGD has led institutions to emphasize its effective usage. The first focus on citizen data highlighted the importance of trust between state and non-state actors (UNSD, 2022). In March 2023, during its 54th Session, the United Nations Statistical Commission supported the establishment of a Collaborative on Citizen Data to develop a conceptual framework for CGD. A draft of this framework was presented during the 55th Session, with finalisation expected by the 56th Session in 2025 (UNSD, 2024). The Collaborative aims to accelerate global adoption of best practices, ensuring CGD is harnessed responsibly and effectively (UNSD, 2023).
Committee discussions called for collaboration with diverse actors (e.g., NSOs, human rights institutions, citizen science networks, researchers, UN agencies, and philanthropic organizations) to identify opportunities and synergies. The Experts Group aims to establish a vibrant Community of Practice to share knowledge and best practices on CGD for inclusive policies.
UN Women’s Women Count and PARIS21 are developing a framework for citizen engagement in the gender data value chain, focusing on engagement, involvement, and empowerment of citizens.
Participatory approaches for gender data are not alternatives to official statistics but transform national statistical systems. They enable citizens and their allies to harness and deliver gender data, informing policy and accelerating action for gender equality and sustainable development.
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Ramya Emandi is a statistics consultant with UN Women’s Women Count programme, focusing on applied econometrics and gender data innovations.
Jessamyn Encarnacion is an Inter-Regional Advisor on Gender Statistics at UN Women, leading projects on gender-disaggregated data and social statistics.
Sofia Olofsson is a programme management specialist with expertise in research, data analysis, and sustainable development, having worked with the World Bank, IPA, and the UN.
The facts, ideas and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO or any of its partners and stakeholders and do not commit nor imply any responsibility thereof. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this piece do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.