Media Advisory: Europe and Central Asia Care Forum 2026
Transforming Care Systems for Inclusive, Resilient and Gender‑Equal Economies
Date:
08:30 – 17:30 (GMT+3)
Why it matters
Care work - whether for children, the elderly, people with disabilities, or the sick - is still largely seen as something that takes place within the family and household, and is carried out disproportionately by women, shaping their time, income, and voice in the economy and public life. Globally, women spend 3.2 times more time per day on unpaid care compared to men - about 4 hours 25 minutes versus 1 hour 23 minutes. In Europe and Central Asia, women devote more than 3.4 times as many hours of unpaid care work per day as men. This makes unpaid care one of the most persistent barriers to women’s equal participation in paid work, leadership, and civic life.
Furthermore, if women’s unpaid care and domestic work were given a monetary value, it would exceed 40 per cent of GDP in some countries. It contributes more to the economy than the manufacturing, trade, or transport sectors. This underscores why recognizing, reducing, and redistributing care work is central to inclusive growth, gender equality, and economic prosperity.
How
The Europe and Central Asia Care Forum will establish a dedicated regional platform to advance care systems. It will bring together participants from the governments, international financial institutions, feminist economists, academia, civil society, trade unions, UN agencies, and the private sector. The Forum will also draw on voices and experiences from across Europe and Central Asia, as well as Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean regions, to promote exchange and shared learning in this critical policy area.
The event will be structured around the following themes: Unpaid Care and Domestic Work, Gender Equality and Macroeconomic Transformation; Care Systems across the Life Course; Decent Work, Migration and the Care Workforce; Financing Care; Transforming Social Norms, including in contexts of gender backlash; Advancing the Care Agenda in Times of Crisis and Conflict; Importance of Data on Care.
The Forum will also mark the launch of the Europe and Central Asia Care Action Agenda (2026-2030), a voluntary roadmap to building care systems that are coherent, gender-responsive, and grounded in human rights.
For more information about the event and the speakers, check out this page: Europe and Central Asia Care Forum 2026.
For interview opportunities, please contact:
Salome Benidze, Regional Communications Specialist, UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, [ Click to reveal ].