Life Cirle Attends TransformCare Investment Initiative Asia-Pacific (TCII-AP)
“This initiative is part of The TransformCare Investment Initiative Asia-Pacific (TCII-AP), jointly convened by UN Women India and UN Women Knowledge and Partnerships Centre in the Republic of Korea, and supported by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of the Republic of Korea and European Union , is a UN Women-led multi-stakeholder initiative contributing to the global TransformCare movement to catalyse multi-donor public and corporate investments and multi-partner collaborations for resilient care systems, towards creating an ecosystem where women can fully realize their economic rights and aims to foster caring societies.
The Technical Assistance Facility is embedded within a broader multi-country learning and capacity-building series designed to support national governments, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in developing concrete strategies to finance care infrastructure and services.” (ref: Concept Note, UN Women)
Over the span of 2 days, representatives from different parts of India as well as the Asia Pacific region including countries of Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nepal, Bhutan, etc. learned about sustainable financing methods for building a care economy that has the potential to empower women. Unmet care needs we learnt perpetrate cycles of poverty and exclusion and women are disproportionately affected. In a country like India where women perform 7 times more unpaid care duties, it is important for partners to work together to reduce, recognise and redistribute care work in the context of family carers and represent and reward the work of professional care workers who replace women performing care work. A 6th R of “Resourcing” was also added as an essential element to address care work. As a regional dialogue, the entire group was split into sub-groups that worked on specific topics covering multiple dimensions of how to finance and transform financing of care. Since the groups had international representatives, cross country learning and thought-provoking questions were asked, ideas discussed and learnings shared.
We also heard from the Government of India and state governments about initiatives meant to address care work. Leaders spoke about our flagship initiatives like the Saksham Anganwadi, Mission Shakti, national time use survey, e Shram portal, etc. The description of Govt of Kerala’s journey towards achieving the extreme poverty free status of Kerala and the centrality of understanding the challenges of women and solving them was inspiring.
Technical sessions on financing covered aspects related to finance taxonomies and gender equality implications, gender responsive budgeting, blended financing, policy simulation for care that outlined need and investments as well as the return on investment in care, care diamond, guiding principles of care model etc.
The workshop closed with celebrating the International Day of Care & Launch of the Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator.
