Promoting decent employment for women through inclusive growth policies and investments in care

The UN Women-ILO Joint Programme  “Promoting decent employment for women through inclusive growth policies and investments in care” ran from February 2020 to December 2023 in Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco and Nepal, and quickly became an important initiative within the UN framework for the immediate socio-economic response to COVID-19. UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, and the International Labour Organization, the United Nations specialized agency devoted to advancing social justice and promoting decent work, worked together and demonstrated exceptional adaptability in critical times, working as One United Nations towards a gender-equitable future.

This UN Women-ILO Joint Programme developed a successful intervention model integrating three inter-related and mutually reinforcing outcomes: 

• gender-responsive macroeconomic policies, which support employment creation and financing for investments in the care economy; 
• gender-responsive sectoral and labour market policies that focus on creating decent jobs for women; 
• and the costing and positive employment and fiscal revenue impacts of investments in the care economy, which lift barriers for women’s entry into employment and contribute to inclusive growth. 

The joint project results and lessons have helped to elevate care and decent work as cross-cutting priorities and SDG enablers at the highest levels of global policy making. It informed the design of the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions, the development of a UN System Policy Paper on Transforming Care Systems in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and Our Common Agenda, the ILO tripartite General Discussion on Decent Work and the Care Economy and its agreed conclusions (June 2024).

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