As Prepared for Delivery

Distinguished guests, I am honored to be invited to speak at this event under the framework of the Generation Equality Forum, Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition. We made our pledge to the Generation Equality Forum based on our deep commitment to women and girls. UNCDF makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries (LDCs). UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. As one of the co-leads of this Coalition, UNCDF looks forward to making important contributions for reducing economic inequality between men and women as part of this global partnership framework.

Our hosts, the Government of Spain, have selected the topic of the Care Economy to be the focus of this event. Women represent 76.2 percent of the total amount of unpaid care work, 3.2 times more time than men. Demand for childcare and elderly is only growing. With COVID-19, inequalities between men and women specially in the care economy have worsened due to disruptions in access to schooling, day care facilities for children and the elderly. Among others, a care economy that responds to the needs of women depends heavily on whether public services and financing decisions by the governments are designed to address these inequalities. Our focus should be on how to build resilient and holistic care systems that will integrate equality as a core pillar, ideally leveraging technology and innovation to increase access and ensure financial substantiality of such systems.

Through our investments at UNCDF, we ensured that women’s unpaid care work including child-care is incorporated as part of the design of our local projects. We are also learning how our financing instruments can be leveraged to promote elderly care. In partnership with UN Women and UNDP, we launched in 2019 we have partnered with a Bangladeshi local social enterprise and provided financing for the development of a Geriatric Care Education and Training Centre in Manikganj, Bangladesh. The Center aims to develop non-medical, specialized caregiving service skills and employment to women and men. The project which focuses on both the domestic and international market demand for elderly care and will create economic opportunities with a special focus on socially marginalized and disadvantage women. Such pilots need to be scaled so that we create an ecosystem that provides viable choices for women to take an active role in the economy and at the same time create income earning opportunities for women as care providers.

Our hosts have asked UNCDF to share their expertise on a unique topic – the relationship between technology and the care economy. This brings me to our work on building inclusive digital economies. Digital innovations have revolutionized, not only how women and girls can access and use financial services, but also how they can engage in the economy to meet their daily needs and improve their skills, productivity and marketability in the digital-economy age, in every stage of their lifecycle. In working to make women builders of digital economies, we expect to support the care economy in the following ways: first, we can leverage our experience with women’s groups, savings groups, and others to increase the digital and financial autonomy of all women and girls, thereby giving them access to skills and opportunities beyond the status quo.

Second, through our deep relationships with digital platform providers, we can assess whether the care economy ecosystem can better bring the labor force together with demand for their skills in way that could pay them equitably, similar to our work linking women’s economic empowerment with e-commerce and digital platforms in West Africa.

Lastly, as unpaid care turns into paid care, we would urge and support stakeholders, especially government decision makers to make those payments digitally, similar to our support to governments and private sector in Fiji, Nepal, Solomon Islands, Uganda, Zambia, and others, thereby moving women one step closer to digital and financial autonomy, supporting their growth to become Women Builders of Digital Economies.

UNCDF looks forward to collaborating with all our partners to create better opportunities for women everywhere specially for those in least developed regions.