To:	The Mayor, Board of Supervisors, & Commission on the Status of Women
From:	Commissioner Emily Moto Murase, Chair, CEDAW Task Force
Re:	CEDAW TASK FORCE FOURTH PROGRESS REPORT
Date:	May, 2000

Background

In April 1998, Mayor Willie Brown and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors enacted a local ordinance (No. 128-98) modeled on the UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW). This Ordinance made San Francisco the first city in the United States to support the implementation of the underlying principles of CEDAW on a local level. The Ordinance requires the City to ensure the protection of human rights, including the elimination of discrimination against women and girls and establishes a CEDAW Task Force to assist in its implementation. The Ordinance also requires periodic reports of our progress. This is the fourth report of the Task Force.

National and International Recognition

Since we last reported to you in November 1999 (upon completion of gender analyses at the Juvenile Probation Department and the Department of Public Works), our work has attracted much interest both nationally and internationally. Our website contains the full Gender Analysis report and guidelines (www.ci.sf ca.us/cosw/cedaw/index.htm). San Francisco’s Ordinance and implementation approach has become a model for applications of CEDAW around California, the United States, and the world.

• The recently released 144 page report "Learning From Experience: Lesson In Mainstreaming Equal Opportunities," published by the Governance of Scotland Forum of the University of Edinburg, devoted four pages to the San Francisco experience.
• The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) report "Bringing Equality Home: Implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)" also includes a section dedicated to the San Francisco CEDAW Ordinance.

Gender Analysis Guideline Revisions & Process

Based on feedback from the first analysis, the Task Force and the Commission on the Status of Women have been working intensively to revise the gender analysis guidelines to make them more user friendly, practical, thought provoking, and specific to San Francisco. The first analysis proved to be extremely time intensive. Since the gender analysis requires departments to learn new ways of thinking, this is a process that cannot be rushed. We have extended the time period for each department to complete the analysis and incorporated many more discussion and trainings into the process.

Briefly, the analysis is now a five-step process:

Step One - Data Collection: Departments gather (quantitative) raw statistics and (qualitative) statements of employee and public concerns.

Step Two - Analysis: Departments evaluate the data from the point of view of human rights with a gender perspective.

Step Three - Recommendations: Departments develop specific ways to ensure the human rights of women and girls.

Step Four - Action Plan and Timeline: Departments create steps for implementing recommendations.

Step Five - Monitoring: The Task Force monitors progress.

Four New Departments to Undergo Gender Analysis

The Task Force selected the following departments to undergo gender analysis next:

• Adult Probation (chosen in part to follow up on the work already done at Juvenile Probation)
• Art Commission (chosen in part due to its educational programs for youth in San Francisco),
• Commission on the Environment (chosen in part because it is a new department)
• Rent Stabilization Board (chosen in part due to the importance of housing)

Each department has undergone an orientation session, as well as a training on focus groups and data collection. Three departments have been trained on human rights and been given technical assistance and guidelines to assist them in the gender analysis process. The Commission on the Environment has requested additional time and assistance due to their new and developing status and small staff. The Commission and the Task Force are meeting with this Department to work out a schedule and technical assistance as necessary to complete the analysis.

Progress Reports on Completed Gender Analyses

The Department of Juvenile Probation will be reporting in May, 2000 on its progress in implementing the recommendations generated from the gender analysis. The Department of Public Works reported on its progress in March of 2000.

The Department of Public Works highlighted a model mentoring program developed for women engineers throughout the city. The project has had an incredible start attracting over seventy individuals to its first meeting and includes sixty plus mentors/mentees. Both women and men act as mentors. This is a model that others throughout the city can utilize providing more visibility as well as leadership development for women.

The Department has also instituted its first job share. The Department reported that is was not currently collecting data about who is, or is not, using flexible work options but that this information could be collected. Collecting this data, as recommended in the gender analysis report, would facilitate the analysis of whether these programs are successful and widely understood and valued. The Task Force encouraged the Department to follow up with employees using focus groups to determine their concerns and needs. The Commission on the Status of Women offered technical expertise in this area.

The Department needs to further expand its recruitment efforts as recommended in the analysis. The Department has yet to demonstrate an innovative or aggressive approach to recruiting women into the many nontraditional positions it offers. This should involve more than an expanded job notice list which the Department is currently implementing. Some options the department should explore are:

• training many more than one EEO officer in recruitment techniques (e.g., architects for recruiting architects, engineers for recruiting engineers, etc)
• aggressively participating in job fairs, attending college campuses to speak on careers opportunities
• working with union halls in a proactive manner
• expanding trainee possibilities
• increasing its profile in women’s professional and trade organizations

The department reported that it is seeking a training grant from the State to teach staff how to integrate gender into its daily operations. The department will also need training on how to do a gender analysis of the their budget.

The Commission on the Status of Women will continue to offer technical assistance for this effort. The Task Force will continue to monitor these developments.

Plans for the Future

The Task Force and staff at the COSW have been very busy with all of the above work. We however, looking forward to expanding public awareness of the work and the exciting achievements that CEDAW in San Francisco has already accomplished. In particular we want others to understand that the San Francisco implementation of CEDAW’s human rights principles are an innovative and proactive approach that deals with discrimination in a holistic and positive manner, rather than the more traditional complaint-driven reactive style of the past. We hope in the near future to begin to take our message and guidelines to the private sector and will be looking for partners in that endeavor. We would welcome your suggestions for forward thinking companies that may be interested in our work.