ECLAC highlights the importance of social protection systems and comprehensive care policies to reverse the unfair organization of care

The event was organized by the Local Support and Care Network Program of the Ministry of Social Development and Family of Chile, together with the Community of Solidarity Organizations and, in addition to the participation of representatives of ECLAC, it was opened by the Resident Coordinator of the System of the United Nations in Chile, María José Torres, the Undersecretary of Social Services, Francisca Perales and the Social Director of the Community of Solidarity Organizations, Luisi Alvarez.

Likewise, within the main topics addressed at the meeting, it was argued that comprehensive care policies should be structured under four guiding principles: universality with progressiveness, intersectoral coordination between ministries and institutions, financial sustainability through spending, investment and collection in care, and co-responsibility between the State, the market, the community and families, and gender between men, women. The design and implementation of public care policies that contemplate these principles are key to moving towards a care society, a societal organization that prioritizes the sustainability of life.

About, Lucía Scuro, Senior Social Affairs Officer of the ECLAC Division for Gender Affairs, pointed out that care is an essential public good for the functioning of society and economies, the exercise of rights and the achievement of equality. He highlighted some of the diverse experiences in the design of care policies and systems in the region, at the level of national systems, subnational policies and local experiences, emphasizing the importance of the territorial perspective in the approach to care from public policy. This approach is essential for the effectiveness of public policy, since it allows accounting for the multiple intersections in which gender inequalities are reproduced.

For its part, Claudia Robles, Social Affairs Officer of the Social Development Division, also of ECLAC, proposed that public care policies must take into account both the population that requires care and the people who care, two key sectors to modify the social organization of care that concentrates the burden on families and communities, where Care responsibilities are assigned mostly to women. Likewise, he highlighted the close link between universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems and care policies, which in synergy can reverse the current social organization of care, contribute to the eradication of poverty and the reduction of inequalities. Likewise, he raised the need to establish systems that, within the framework of a welfare State, provide quality services, which in turn integrate universal care policies, since these intervene on the structural gaps in welfare, inequality and social vulnerability. .

In this sense, both professionals reiterated ECLAC’s call to move towards a care society, a societal organization that prioritizes the sustainability of life and the planet and guarantees the rights of people who require care, as well as the rights of people who provide such care. It is urgent to move towards public policies that counteract the precariousness of jobs related to the care sector and make visible the multiplier effects of the care economy in terms of well-being and as a dynamic sector for a transformative recovery with equality and sustainability.

This activity also included the participation of Ana María Muñoz, Senior Specialist in Poverty and Equity and Verónica Silva, Senior Specialist in Social Protection of the World Bank; Elizabeth Guerrero, Gender Specialist of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); and Albania Quevedo, Manager of Economic Empowerment Programs of the United Nations Organization – UN Women.