DatAcción: A Platform to Strengthen the Strategic Use of Data
On March 25, as part of DAT4CCIÓN: Regional Datathon for Equality 2026, organized by UN Women Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean; the Global Center of Excellence on Gender Statistics (CEEG); the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data; and the Mexican Secretariat for Women; a training and exchange space was launched to strengthen the strategic use of data on priority issues for the equality and safety of women, girls, and adolescents.
DAT4CCIÓN is a regional datathon led by UN Women that invites participants to transform data into action to advance gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through this initiative, experts in data, research, public policy, design, and communication come together to analyze information, identify patterns, and develop innovative, evidence-based solutions that help understand and close gender gaps in the region.
The journey begins with a launch session, where the initiative is presented and the power of data is explored to highlight inequalities and guide more informed public decisions. In the second session, specialists share experiences and tools that demonstrate how data can be transformed into useful knowledge for designing policies and actions with real impact. Finally, the closing session marks the transition from reflection to action: lessons learned are summarized, the next steps for the datathon are outlined, and participants are invited to form teams and turn the data into concrete proposals.
Over the course of two sessions, experts shared their experiences regarding the application of various tools and principles for creating statistical dashboards, which streamline the recording, management, and dissemination of statistical data for institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean. One of these presentations was led by the UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The first presentation was given by Aritzi Sánchez and Nadia Neri from the Secretariat for Women, who shared their experience in building dashboards with a community- centered perspective and an ethical narrative. They emphasized the importance of constructing a data narrative that not only focuses on visualization but also calls for action. They also discussed how data transparency influences its credibility and how it is presented.
In the next presentation, Adriana Oropeza, Coordinator of the UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence, introduced the UNODC data portal, an official platform that compiles international information on homicide, violence, human trafficking, and other crimes. Through these resources, participants can explore comparable information on human trafficking, gender-based homicides of women and girls, and other topics related to security, justice, and the SDGs.
This portal draws on data shared by countries in accordance with certain international standards. To this end, the Centre of Excellence offers technical assistance for the adaptation and adoption of these standards. During the presentation, Adriana Oropeza shared Costa Rica’s experience with the implementation of the International Classification on Trafficking in Persons (IC-TIP). Its use helped strengthen the consistency of the registry, improve the comparability of information, and align statistical production with international benchmarks such as GLOTIP.
Only after strengthening the statistical process through the IC-TIP and data capture was the dashboard built. For this part of the presentation, Pablo Guevara, a Security and Justice Statistics Specialist at the CdE, explained the methodological basis, where the Center evolved manual processes in Excel toward a more integrated flow of data entry and updating, developed using Microsoft technologies via Power Apps and related tables in SharePoint. This evolution made it possible to reduce reliance on manual data entry, strengthen data traceability, and move toward a more organized, scalable, and sustainable framework for information management.
This dashboard enabled us to synthesize relevant information, identify patterns, drill down using filters, and inform decision-making, all in accordance with statistical standards, ethical principles, a gender perspective, and intersectionality.
The dashboard organizes the analysis into modules such as:
accreditation applications,
accredited individuals,
events and vulnerabilities,
reports, and
catalogs.
In addition, it incorporates high thematic granularity to characterize:
sociodemographic profiles,
purposes of exploitation,
vulnerabilities,
sources and contexts of recruitment,
and territorial differences by province and canton.
In conclusion, it was highlighted how the dashboard supports the management of the Immediate Response Team, facilitating the tracking of requests, the organization of information, and a more structured understanding of cases. It also improves the statistical basis for analysis, enabling time series, greater geographic and thematic granularity, and a better characterization of victims.
The dashboard is part of a broader effort to strengthen institutional capacities and transform administrative records into actionable intelligence. This process—from the implementation of the international standard (IC-TIP) to the dissemination of the dashboard—not only creates a final product but also builds and establishes institutional capacities that endure and strengthen the statistical system.
The experience shared at DatAcción shows that the value of data lies not only in its availability, but in the ability to convert it into a useful knowledge infrastructure.
More:
Dat4acción website