Care workers are an integral, though often invisible, part of society. They care for children and the elderly, provide health services to their communities, and do housework for little to no pay — even though such work is vital to keeping economies humming. So who cares for the care workers?
A new partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, and the CARE Fund will direct $4.8 million over two years to help care workers in five countries — Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, and the Philippines — mobilize and advocate for stronger wages, safer working conditions, and gender equality. A memorandum of understanding announcing the initiative was signed on Thursday at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women Summit in New York, and the goal is to bring on more donors in the future.
“This is just a start, and we really do have a lot of room to grow in this space of investing in care infrastructure worldwide,” Bama Athreya, USAID’s deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation, told Devex.