Cities
Unsafe cities are costly cities. When women cannot move freely without fear through streets, on public transport, in parks and public spaces, they withdraw from economic and civic life. They work fewer hours, take fewer jobs, start fewer businesses, and participate less in the decisions that shape their communities.
The economic cost is measurable. The UN estimates that gender-based violence costs economies up to 3.7 per cent of GDP, more than most countries spend on primary and secondary education combined. Cities that fail to invest in safety do not simply absorb a social cost. They forgo the full productive, civic, and democratic contribution of half their population.
The governance case is equally compelling. Cities that embed safety into urban planning, public services, and institutional culture attract greater investment, stronger civic participation, and more resilient communities. Vienna, Bogotá, and San Francisco demonstrate what becomes possible when safety is deliberately designed into transit, public space, service delivery, and budgets. Trust rises. Participation increases. Communities thrive.
The Opportunity
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Cities are at a pivotal moment. The growing global network of Human Rights Cities, now spanning over 700 municipalities across five continents, signals a fundamental shift in how urban governance is understood: not as the management of services, but as the active realisation of rights.
Alongside this movement, a parallel revolution has been building from the ground up. In 1998, San Francisco became the first municipality in the world to pass a CEDAW ordinance, making the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women legally binding at the local level and demonstrating that cities need not wait for national governments to act. As of 2025, more than 70 cities and counties have adopted legislative measures grounded in CEDAW.
Dignity Index Global has provided technical assistance to over 56 of these cities and has developed a rigorous, human rights-based assessment. That work demonstrated that safety and human rights are not abstract principles. They are measurable, designable, and achievable and that the gap between a city's current reality and its human rights potential to increase safety can be mapped, understood, and closed. -
Rather than measuring the incidence of harm, Dignity Index Global measures the presence of safety, creating a forward-looking, evidence-based standard that cities can build toward, report on, and be recognised for.
Our offer to cities is structured around five interconnected commitments:
City Human Rights Assessment: A comprehensive, participatory process that assesses impacts on people, not impacts on the institution. Grounded in the full spectrum of internationally recognised human rights and centering the concerns of those most affected, it identifies where rights are being fulfilled, where gaps exist, and where structural inequalities are being reproduced, often invisibly, through policy choices, budget allocations, and service design.
For the most recent Human Rights Readiness Assessment conducted by Dignity Index Global in the city of Dayton, Ohio, USA, please see here.
City Safety Indicators: Grounded in dignity and human rights standards, these indicators define what safety looks and feels like in a specific city. Measurable, contextual, and owned by the city and its people.
Safety Scorecard: A new metric for cities: measuring the presence of safety, not only the incidence of violence. The scorecard enables cities to establish a baseline, track progress over time, and report credibly to residents, partners, and investors.
Blueprint: A practical, co-created roadmap for achieving the safety indicators and advancing toward human rights city status, with timelines, responsibilities, and accountability mechanisms built in, and designed to be owned and led from within.
Capacity Building: Support for city leadership, staff, and community to embed safety and human rights standards into governance, planning, and service delivery.