Care economy partnerships for change (CEP4C)

 

The care economy is vital to society but it remains invisible, undervalued and unevenly distributed. Unpaid care and domestic work are a key barrier to empowering women and girls. The pandemic revealed and exacerbated the disproportionate responsibility for unpaid and care work that women continue to bear, especially the poorest and most marginalized. Further, the economic crisis generated by COVID-19 swept away many years of global progress towards gender equality. A sustainable and inclusive economic recovery must strive for a fair transformation of the care economy that leads to a co-responsible care model between households, communities, markets and states.

While COVID-19 amplified the inequalities associated with the care economy, it also opened a unique opportunity to make the care economy visible and has furthered the relevance to design and implement measures to address this. This project will help mobilize public and private sector innovations to transform the care economy towards greater gender equality. It will foster collaboration between researchers, public and private sector innovations, women’s advocacy organizations and donors and it will form strategic alliances with leading institutions. It will also support applied research and market-based solutions, foster peer learning and build the capacities of key stakeholders to use the evidence to bring about positive change in the care economy.