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Care as aspiration and inspiration

What are the components of care as an aspiration and an inspiration?

This stage will stimulate a fruitful collective reflection on the existing approaches to care, starting from UCLG's own approach promoted with GOLD VII and finding synergies with other movements and schools of thought. For instance, the feminist municipalist movement, the social and solidarity economy movement, and the work on human rights cities have all inspired compelling understandings of care. Exploring the links that exist between different understandings and agendas around care is fundamental in order to uncover common values and principles that can serve as a foundation to build shared systems of care.

🧭 The guiding questions are:

➝ “How can we define ‘care’?”,

➝ “Why do we need caring cities and territories?”,

➝ "Which values and principles underpinning different agendas can be applicable to the caring agenda too?”.

💜 Summary Document

Camila Cociña, Paula Sevilla Núñez and Alexandre Apsan Frediani (IIED)

IIED's Summary Document of the Care as Aspiration and Inspiration stage of the GOLD VII on Economies of Equality and Care elaborates on the remarkable insights collected in the participatory research process together with 15+ partners. Collectively, Care emerges as a crucial lens for the municipalist movement. The document clearly demonstrates that cities and territories that Care are more just, more democratic and more sustainable.

(The Summary Document is also available: en español, en français)

💗 Towards Caring Cities

Guangzhou Award, coordinated by Nicholas You

Stemming from the 2023 Guangzhou Award for Urban Innovation, the 16 cities selected for this contribution have produced inspiring caring systems and innovations in the design and implementation of care-based tools. Together, these experiences stand as an outstanding example of how local territories truly choose to care for their inhabitants, their surroundings, and the planet, while adapting care perspectives to local contexts.

📝 Read the full Towards “Caring Cities” contribution:

📺 Watch some inspiring videos showing the numerous ways, contexts, and sectors in which a care perspective can be used to make a difference and create more equal, sustainable, and inclusive societies. :

📄 We also invite you to read Future partnerships for a ‘caring city', commentary by Assoc Prof Lucy Natarajan:

💗 Local democratic innovations expanding the notion of care: Participatory Budgeting as an enabler of care-based local development

Yves Cabannes (University College London)

A caring city is one that is built collectively, with the participation of all. In his contribution, Cabannes studies the cities selected in the OIDP awards of 2022 and 2023 to analyze their Participatory Budgeting (PB) practices. He finds that PB is strictly connected to care, due to its ability to create trust, leave no one behind, and naturally incorporate intersectional approaches to care in its processes and outcomes.

(The Executive Summary is also available: en español, en français, em português)

💗 Embedding Care in Urban Institutional Response during Crises

Carlos José Celis, Aratrika Debnath and Amogh Arakali, directed by Michael Cohen (Observatory on Latin America - The New School)

How can a care-based approach support the emergency response in times of crisis? In its contribution, The New School brilliantly displays how care and complex crises are intrinsically connected, and how territories with a strong care system can respond more effectively to such emergencies.

💛 Care, public services and the importance of integrated local public ownership

Bethia Pearson, Lavinia Steinfort, Jerry van den Berge and Andrew Cumbers (University of Glasgow and Transnational Institute)

Local and regional authorities have the power to set the basis for the creation of care systems. The Transnational Institute and the University of Glasgow discuss the shift needed in terms of how services are provided and how communities function. Remunicipalisation is the tool of choice to foster such a transition towards more equal, more caring, and more prosperous societies.

💛 Using the time factor to improve cities well-being and caring societies

Marta Junqué and Marc Martorell (Time Use Initiative)

We have a problem with time. In the current vision of society time is often a scarce and unequally distributed resource. Changing the way we understand time is crucial to finally promote care as an in-built feature of public and private life. Time Use Initiative, in their contribution, examines how time can be acted upon at the local and regional scale, as well as the potential that a new conception of time holds for the creation of more equitable cities.

💛 How cultural rights can enable practices of care

Jordi Baltà and the UCLG Culture Committee

Baltà and the UCLG Culture Committee reflect on the connections and interdependencies between care and culture. What comes out is a powerful account of the double nature of this relationship, one that accounts for the need for care-lenses for culture to flourish while at the same time highlights the numerous positive contributions that culture and cultural initiatives can bring to a care-based society. In this sense, cultural rights and care can enhance one another.

💛 Care-based public policies and services for peacebuilding

Ana Barrero and Tica Font (AIPAZ)

Can care be a powerful tool for social cohesion and peacebuilding in our cities? AIPAZ demonstrates how peace, care, and social justice are not merely connected, but instead share a consequential relationship in local contexts. Through a compelling narrative and examples, the contribution advocates for an holistic approach to care and peace: one that moves beyond a rights-based approach to embrace collective responsibility, participatory democracy, and the inclusion of the most vulnerable groups.

💛 Urban Safety Monitor: Knowledge Systems that Care

Barbara Holtmann and Emma de Villiers (Fixed Africa)

Fixed Africa’s contribution tackles the issue of safety and how it is often treated as unidimensional in local and regional governance. The organisation addresses the multidimensional nature of safety and convincingly shows that a more care-based, community-based approach is needed in order to break vicious cycles of securitization and foster an integrated well-being for all.

💛 Six feminist perspectives on Care, Community, and Democracy

United Cities and Local Governments

These six videos discuss the conceptualization of care around democracy and the municipalist movement. As in an abstract dialogue, the statements made by the feminist leaders interviewed manage to express the need for the advancement of a right to care, and an energetic call to action to put care at the basis of our (local) democracies and cultivate what is public to fight inequalities.

💛 Caring cities: Calling local leaders to the forefront of universal health coverage progress

Dr. Magda Robalo and Dr. Pamela Cipriano (UHC2030)

Care beyond health means putting people at the centre, rather than diseases. In its contribution, UHC2030 argues that caring cities are based on equity, solidarity, and collective responsibility. Putting people at the centre means empowering local governments and creating the conditions for a holistic embracing of all dimensions of care.

💛 Care-full City Planning: insights across contexts

Romina Rodela (Södertörn University) and Miriam Williams (Macquarie University)

Rodela and Williams’ contribution addresses a crucial dimension of local and regional governance: planning. Their analysis manages to craftily bring to light the necessity for a care-based transformation of planning practices and governance models. In fact, they argue, it is precisely by reshaping unequal and uncaring forms of governance that it is possible to refocus our societies towards community well-being and inclusive equality.

💛 Model of domiciliary care for elderly people in a situation of dependency in the Dominican Republic

Maite Pavón (Consorci de Salut i Social de Catalunya)

Through the compelling example of an elderly people’s integrated care system in the Dominican Republic, Pavón illustrates how different levels of the public administration can work together to ensure a holistic care plan for its elderly. Integrated and cross-sectoral approach to care, well-being, autonomy and local needs are the keywords used to describe this successful model of care in practice. (Documento también disponible en español)

💛 Learning from feminist approaches to habitat: The role of care systems in addressing social and territorial inequality.

Habitat International Coalition (HIC)

The feminist agenda and the care agenda can strengthen one another. Through three powerful interviews, HIC explores the relation between gender inequality, care, and women empowerment and inclusion, highlighting the importance of adopting a feminist lens on local and regional planning and development.

🧡 The Political Agenda of the Feminist Municipal Movement. Care and the care economy at the heart of local management

Ana Falú, UCLG LED Committee

This document of the UCLG LED Committee, authored by Ana Falú, highlights the political agenda of the Feminist Municipal Movement, placing care and the care economy at the center of local governance. It explores how local and regional governments can integrate care policies into urban planning and economic frameworks to foster gender equality, social justice and sustainable development. The report advocates for institutional reforms, decentralization and multilevel governance to ensure care is recognized as a fundamental public responsibility.