In Highlight: Equality Bodies Comparison Dashboard

The Equality Bodies Comparison Dashboard offers a distinct approach to tracking and understanding the work of Equality Bodies (EBs) across Europe. One of its key strengths lies in the breadth and depth of its data. It brings together detailed information across multiple dimensions, enabling comparisons of over 40 EBs in a structured and layered way. This level of granularity enables users to explore operational features that are often overlooked in broader overviews.

The dashboard is also designed to be interactive and user-friendly. Its visualizations, such as charts, tables, and maps, are filterable and clickable, allowing users to focus on specific countries or criteria relevant to their interests. This supports more targeted exploration of the data.

Accessibility has also been a guiding principle in the development of the tool. Datasets can be downloaded directly, which facilitates further analysis and use by researchers, civil society organizations (CSOs), and other stakeholders. The platform is compatible with screen readers, aiming to ensure inclusive access to information.

In terms of its comparative potential, the dashboard allows users to examine EBs in relation to EU legislation and international policy standards, including those outlined by the European Commission. While it does not replace formal monitoring mechanisms under the new Directives on Standards for EBs, it can serve as a practical resource to support the assessment of national transposition efforts and identify areas for improvement.

While there is no other tool that directly relies on this dashboard, it complements Equinet’s European Directory of Equality Bodies, serving as its comparison-based core layer.

In the context of the transposition and implementation of the EU Directives on Standards for Equality Bodies (Directive (EU) 2024/1500 and Directive (EU) 2024/1499), this comparison dashboard can serve as an advocacy and learning tool for EBs, CSOs, and other equality stakeholders in EU Member States. It enables users to benchmark where a National Equality Body currently stands in relation to the minimum binding standards set out by the Directives, helping to prevent backsliding and identify existing gaps that can inform national transposition processes.

Additionally, the tool can be used to highlight good practices drawn from EBs in other countries, including non-EU states. Equality stakeholders, such as researchers, CSOs, and EU institutions, can also use the dashboard to compare protections across countries and identify best practices in areas of particular interest.

The tool serves a diverse range of users, each with distinct purposes:

• National EBs: to benchmark against counterpart institutions, identify operational gaps or peer examples, and shape advocacy agendas.
• Equality stakeholders: Civil society, researchers, and policy-makers, to analyse national disparities and spotlight best legal frameworks or practices.
• Publicly interested audiences: Academics, journalists, and other equality stakeholders, to explore country-specific protections and institutional setups.

At the moment there are no additional developments foreseen. The Equinet team is currently working on optimizing the data source that feeds into the tool, to ensure up-to-date data, and flexibility for EBs to update data on their institutions as changes occur during the implementations of the Directives on Standards for Equality Bodies.