From Invisible Work to Public Responsibility: African Solutions for Transforming Care

Across Africa, caregivers sustain households, livelihoods and communities, yet much of this work remains unsupported and invisible. This #VoicesOfCare webinar will bring together four ACT CoP projects to share what they are learning about transforming care in different African contexts.

The discussion will feature experiences from rural childcare and shared caregiving in Kenya and Ethiopia; a neighborhood care model being developed in Freetown; research with caregivers of people living with non-communicable diseases in Kenya; and advocacy for an unpaid care and domestic work framework in Zimbabwe.

A caregiver reflection will open the discussion, grounding the conversation in lived experiences. The project representatives will then share what has changed, what remains to be built, and what is needed to move local innovations towards sustained public support.

The 70-minute cross-country webinar will explore how African care initiatives are moving from recognising unpaid care work to providing practical services, promoting shared caregiving and influencing public policy and investment. The four projects will demonstrate different approaches across rural livelihoods, urban service delivery, health-related caregiving and legislative advocacy.

Speakers will clearly distinguish between achievements, lessons and activities that are still being developed. The session will conclude with concrete asks for policymakers and an opportunity for participants to identify approaches they could adapt in their own contexts.

Guiding question: What changes when communities, cities and governments take shared care responsibilities and build policies around care?

Audience Care practitioners and caregivers; civil society and feminist movements; city and national policymakers; development partners; members of the Global Alliance for Care.

Objectives

● Show practical ways to recognise, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work across distinct African settings.

● Place caregivers’ experiences alongside project evidence and policy proposals.

● Identify transferable lessons and a small set of concrete public commitments for care systems.