United Nations Joint Programme on Transformative Growth of the Care Economy in Türkiye

The Transformative Growth of the Care Economy in Türkiye is a United Nations Joint Programme (UNJP) supporting Türkiye to advance a rights-based, inclusive and sustainable care economy. The Programme positions care as a public good and a strategic investment area for decent work, gender equality and sustainable development.

The Programme is implemented under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator in Türkiye, ensuring system-wide coherence.

• ILO (Lead Agency): Leads technical work on care economy, decent work and labour standards, and coordinates capacity-building and policy dialogue.
• UNDP (Co-implementing Agency): Supports governance, financing and digital transformation aspects of care systems.
• UN Women, UNICEF and UNFPA provide complementary technical expertise to ensure a gender-transformative, life-course and rights-based approach to the care economy, addressing unpaid care work, early childhood education and care, child-sensitive services, ageing and long-term care needs.

National counterparts and stakeholders

• The Ministry of Family and Social Services serves as the main national counterpart.
  Line ministries, local authorities, workers’ and employers’ organizations, civil society organizations and academia actively participate in policy dialogue, capacity-building and roadmap development.

Target group

The project targets public institutions and local authorities responsible for care-related policies and service delivery; workers’ and employers’ organizations engaged in social dialogue; civil society organizations active in care provision and advocacy; and key stakeholders involved in the design, financing and implementation of care services. Indirect beneficiaries include care workers and care recipients—particularly women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities—who stand to benefit from strengthened care policies and improved service delivery.

Programme objectives

The overall objective of the UN Joint Programme is to strengthen capacities to of public institutions, local authorities, social partners, and civil society on opportunities, especially digital transformation to improve care policy and services in Türkiye in line with international norms and standards including labour standards and international good practices and country models It has two main outputs:

It has two complementary outputs:

• Development of care economy and service provision models ready-for-implementation and endorsed by central and local actors, including those harnessing the potentials of digital transformation.
• Increased capacity among the government institutions and social partners to develop, implement and monitor a road map on improvement of policies and financing strategy of care economy in Türkiye.

Main activities

• Establishing a multi-stakeholder platform to strengthen policy dialogue and coordination on the care economy.
• Conducting policy analysis and consultations to identify care policy gaps and priorities.
• Delivering capacity-building and training activities on integrated, rights-based and gender-responsive care policies.
• Developing draft roadmaps and policy tools to guide future care reforms and investments.
• Producing and disseminating knowledge products to highlight the economic and social value of investing in care.
• Promoting digital and innovative solutions to improve access to and quality of care services.