The Belize Crime Observatory (BCO) presented its mid-year country-report on gender-based violence in the form of an interactive, dynamic and instructive innovative web display.  The web display fosters deeper understanding of the state of violence against women in the first half of 2021, and presents information that enables public officials and citizens to track public policies.

The digital tool makes it possible to navigate disaggregated data, allowing for gender-sensitive analysis and territorial exploration at the district level, of the state of violence in Belize using georeferenced maps that display specific information on each district. This work shows, for instance, that there has been a downward trend in cases of domestic violence and in acts of sexual violence, such as rape and illicit sexual relations with minors, as well as the murder of female victims. However, it also points to the disproportionate effect that other forms of gender-based violence still have on younger women and girls.

The BCO, in the Ministry of Home Affairs & New Growth Industries, has had a solid and fruitful partnership with UNDP Belize, through Infosegura since 2014. This alliance has had the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has provided essential resources needed to strengthen information management capacities for the development of evidence-based public policy for citizen security.

The half-year report on gender-based violence in Belize is one of the best practices in information display and digital integration of data on citizen security, some of the capabilities strengthened by Infosegura. It also informs the gender work that the UNDP has been promoting in the region, as a result of the findings in the publication on The Hidden Face of Insecurity, annual infographics, the campaign against intrafamily violence during the COVID-19 related lockdown period, and the weekly discussions on the Datacción webinars.

The BCO has implemented this online solution on Gender-based Violence to facilitate understanding and use of data about gender-based violence, offering citizens and public officials an invaluable resource for those interested in a deeper analysis of gender-based violence in Belize and the region.

It addition to data and analysis, the website has a section where the user can put their own knowledge about statistics on domestic violence in Belize to the test. In addition, the site makes an infographic available to the user on domestic violence in the first half of 2021, as well as additional materials generated by the Observatory.

More information about the analysis of gender-base-violence in Belize during the first half of 2021 is available at Gender-Based Violence.

Infosegura is part of the UNDP regional strategy to consolidate effective governance, beyond the recovery, whose eight principles include strengthening State capabilities for the production, use and dissemination of data to contribute to greater citizen participation and trust. “Information management is key for public policy; citizen involvement requires sharing data; data needs to be shared with citizens to strengthen trust”, as stated in the guidance for conversation and actions for a sustainable recovery and oriented towards to implementing the 2030 Agenda.