Peru discusses the creation of a national care system together with specialists from the United Nations System

Peruvian Government authorities and United Nations specialists: UNICEF, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) exchanged on the conceptual framework, the main challenges and the opportunities for the implementation of a national care system in Peru. They did so within the framework of the meeting “Towards the construction of a Social Protection System in Peru”, held from April 12 to 14 in Lima, Peru and convened by UNICEF.

During the main conference, the Vice Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations of Peru, Silvia Loli, presented the bill that is currently being discussed in the National Parliament and emphasized the urgency of the State’s response to those populations that require care. She highlighted the importance of the rights approach in these policies and emphasized that care must be based on the physical and mental integrity of people, the exercise of responsible paternity and maternity, and free development and well-being.

Lucía Scuro, ECLAC Senior Social Affairs Officer, pointed out that the Buenos Aires Commitment approved at the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in November 2022, is the most current roadmap within the framework of the intergovernmental agreements of the Regional Gender Agenda. This commitment reiterates the call to promote recovery plans with affirmative actions to achieve substantive equality, which promote comprehensive care systems, decent work and the full, meaningful and equal participation of women in leadership positions in strategic sectors. of the economy. This with the aim of achieving a transformative recovery with gender equality oriented towards the sustainability of life and to move towards the care society.

Scuro, highlighted the importance of designing and implementing care policies with the aspiration to consolidate a national system based on four fundamental guiding criteria. In the first place, a horizon of universality with progressiveness, which implies that policies must have a universal aspiration within the framework of equality, recognizing that there are populations with greater demands and with deep deficiencies to solve care. These policies must be progressive and facilitate access to all people, without detriment to the quality of the services offered. Secondly, intersectoral and interinstitutional coordination is essential given the complex and innovative nature of care policies from a gender perspective, which requires an intersectoral approach and the coordinated work of various ministries and sectors. It is essential that the care policy allows the intervention of different sectors of the State, both in the provision and in the regulation of services and benefits.

Likewise, the third criterion that Lucía Scuro referred to is co-responsibility, which includes both the need to distribute care work between men and women, as well as its distribution between the State, the market, households and the community. Finally, he explained that the fourth pillar of financial sustainability implies incorporating the objectives regarding the social distribution of care in macroeconomic policies, and especially in fiscal policies (income, expenses and investment), that is, that in the management of public finances, the dimension of care must be considered.

To close her presentation, the ECLAC representative emphasized that the care society involves a collective and multidimensional construction to untie the structural knots of gender inequality and place care for people and the planet at the center of sustainable development.

For their part, during the seminar, officials from the Ministries of Women and Vulnerable Populations, of Education, and of Development and Social Inclusion commented on the main advances in care in each of the sectors.