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The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) Guide to Gender-Responsive Public Procurement [Sweden]
The question at the heart of gender-responsive public procurement is: do services, buildings and goods meet the needs of people of all genders? In Sweden, as in all Member Sates, national legislation, influenced by European legislation, sets the legal framework for public procurement. In 2022, SALAR published a Guide to Gender-Responsive Public Procurement16 after its member organisations expressed a need for more support. Applying a gender lens to procurement has often meant considering the supply chain. However, the SALAR guide emphasises that public procurement is also concerned with local labour market conditions, for example whether the working conditions of suppliers meet legal requirements and the role procurement policies can play in addressing sectorial gender imbalances. The guide also highlights the gender equality aspect of publicly funded goods and services, such as do goods and services benefit all residents equally? Applying a gender analysis to its new uniforms, the Swedish Armed Forces for example were able to commission uniforms with a good fit for a range of body types and sizes. In municipal housing projects, a gendered lens could mean superintendents and other staff undergo mandatory gender-based violence awareness training in order to respond appropriately to these situations. The methodology of the guide and accompanying checklist is transferable to anyone working in the EU. However,
it is difficult for someone not trained in gender analysis to do this work, so we need combined competencies in this work. says Magnus Jacobson, Gender expert and
Communication Strategist at the SALAR.
He points to a best case example from 5 municipalities in the South of Sweden that combined procurement offices to finance a gender and sustainability specialist.
16 SALAR (2022) see at: https://rapporter.skr.se/upphandling-for-jamstalldhet.html (in Swedish). 17 EIGE, Gender-responsive Public Procurement , see at: https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/methods-
tools/gender-responsive-public-procurement 18 CRIADO PEREZ, C. (2019). Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men , New York: Abrams Press.
[ CALL TO ACTION ] Do you want to implement gender-responsive public procurement (GRPP) in your city? Check out the newly-released toolkit for GRPP from the EIGE17 The URBACT Knowledge Hub Strategic Procurement initiative also includes a series of online modules for city practitioner.
3D. DATA AND MONITORING
Can snow clearing be sexist? is the seemingly provocative chapter that starts Caroline Criado Perez s bestselling book Invisible Women . Through this and other examples, Perez outlines systemic data bias which takes the male perspective as the default and frequently lacks data on women. In this world, even a public service like snow clearing has gendered dimensions. Umeå (Sweden), for
example, reports that by collecting data about transportation and employment patterns, the city determined that women are most likely to be the first people to use the roads in the morning as they go out to care-taking roles, often on bikes. The council therefore directed the roads department to clear snow from the bike lanes first18.
Case Study
