1. Gender violence is a social problem and responsibility - Through the indepth interviews the hypothesis of how responsibility to address gender violence, and often blame, falls on the victim was reinforced. Participants of the learning cycle, including public servants, confirmed how existing support programs are usually designed and implemented assuming/expecting that the victims are the ones responsible for seeking help. Other insights of the sensing and exploration phases referred to how social norms often place blame for violence on victims themselves. Although, in recent years, civil society and government organizations have created different strategies to prevent, address and eradicate violence against women, these responses tend to focus on the victim. In other words, when support and complaint channels are designed and implemented, it is often assumed that the victims are the ones responsible for seeking help.  2. Actions are needed to strengthen a support system for women - A main takeaway underlined the importance of promoting an understanding of gender violence as a social responsibility and how including more people in addressing it can offer interesting entry points to eradicate it.  Victims notably rely on trusted people when facing gender violence.  Studies identified point to the potential of leveraging the proximity of witnesses and people close to victims and strengthening their role as a support fabric by offering them high quality information and guidance.   3. Witnesses and people close to victims present a relevant opportunity to support women- Despite the potential of involving witnesses, the exploration surfaced how it is imperative to recognize that multiple factors influence witnesses' decisions to act against gender violence.   Witnesses and people close to the victims are generally not considered or addressed when trying to eradicate gender violence.  The Mexico City government has not implemented any kind of mechanisms that facilitate or allow witnesses of gender-based violence to report cases and identified that its efforts focused on incorporating a gender perspective both in the public administration and in the care and protection system for women who experience gender-based violence. Our research included: mapping initiatives and actions that the government of Mexico City has carried out to reduce gender violence in the last few years; reviewing the annual government reports of the Mexico City council corresponding to 2019 and 2020; and a detailed review of the action plans, communication campaigns, and online resources of the Minister of Women.   4. Proposals to engage with witnesses must consider multiple factors and transition design -  Specialists shared how witnesses and people close to the victims need to undergo a series of steps and overcome different barriers to become agents of change. Studies point to five primary types of barriers that witnesses need to overcome to intervene in a gender violence situation, which are:  Social influence (no one else is intervening) Spotlight inhibition (fear of ridicule in front of others) Fear of retaliation (negative consequences for oneself)  Pluralistic ignorance (seeing own desire to intervene as inappropriate) Specific factors such as gender and characteristics of the situation.  In the case of sexual violence, the barriers are usually the negative perception of the police and the judicial system, fear of one's own safety, triggering more violence, and perceiving the matter as something private.   Our action model for a witness to act and overcome any of the previously mentioned barriers include the following steps to transition through 1) become aware of the situation, 2) they know that the situation requires intervention, 3) assume responsibility, 4) know how to help and 5) to trust in their ability to finally act. This transition process is also influenced by both cultural beliefs and social perceptions. In contrast, previous studies have identified that the main incentives for a witness to want to act, at least in a situation of sexual violence, are: 1) a close relationship with the victim, 2) having the consent of the victim, 3) understanding this type of violence, 4) knowing how to intervene, 5) reporting anonymously, and 6) availability of various forms of intervention in addition to reporting to the police.  5. Active socialization engaging and informing people close to the phenomenon is key - Advice for reporting violations needs to be socialized more. To file a case against a violation, people close to the victims can play a key role in connecting the victim to relevant advice, resources, and programs. A chatbot offers an interesting opportunity to deliver violation case advice that can be included in multiple conversation flows of the design.

The adoption of the technological solution by government is by experience a long process and often not easy to overcome the use of certain licensed platforms or costs of using WhatsApp which is a wider used channel of communication. While these conversations with our counterpart have just started, we are already thinking of alternative ways for its deployment.

As for now, we haven’t used data, but planning is underway for using anonymous data from interaction with the bot for improving iterations and looking into existing citizen social media messages with the Ministry of Women.

Often government programs are designed from the perspective of what the institution can achieve or how they organize, communicate and classify information. For the chatbot to be more effective and fluid with the experience of users, it involved designing from the perspective of users. This also included a survey to create the personality and persona of the chatbot.

Codeando México - Codeando México is a civil society organization focused on developing public innovation and technology. Their insights assisted in the testing and improvement of the solution.

UNAM Civic Lab - The UNAM Civic Lab supports the project accompanying the design of the chatbot and the development of the technological solution.

Ministry of Women of Mexico City - The collaboration will contribute to the Ministry of Women's network of territorial Centers to assist women victims of violence and prevent gender violence and explore a technology solution to create awareness and support the role of witnesses.

UNAM Civic Lab and Codeando México. As entities that are focus in developing and testing new technologies, they are not the usual partners of UNDP, which often requires the development of robust existing and tested solutions. 

UNDP CO Gender Unit - The collaboration between the CO Gender Unit and the AccLab builds on previous collaborations in which the Lab supports the Unit in identifying and developing innovative approaches and solutions that may be tested and scaled.     UN Women -  This collaboration builds on a longer-term collaboration with the Gender Unit of UNDP on supporting Mexico City's protocols and solutions to eradicate gender violence.