• • ILO director-general Gilbert F. Houngbo highlights the care sector’s importance to families, communities, and economies, and calls on governments, employers, and workers to invest in quality, accessible care for all.

GENEVA, Switzerland – Care and support are fundamental to well-being, social justice and sustainable economic development. We all need care and support throughout our lives, as persons with disabilities, older persons, children or caregivers.

Robust and universal care and support systems allow us to live full, creative and productive lives. Yet too often, care work goes unseen, undervalued and underpaid.

Women still do the greatest share of unpaid care work. And too many paid care workers, including domestic workers, community health workers and migrant care workers, work without the social and labour protections that are due to them.

Care and support are essential for both workers with disabilities and workers with dependents with disabilities. In their absence, equality of opportunity, fairness and dignity at work will continue to elude all of us.

Employers, too, benefit when care and support policies help retain and attract talent, and foster sustainable, inclusive and innovative workplaces.

This is why the ILO’s Resolution concerning decent work and the care economy is so vital. It calls for strong and sustainable national care systems and coherent action across the design, implementation and financing of policies and services. It also requires a skilled and respected workforce.

And it provides a clear compass: the “5-R Framework for Decent Care Work”: Recognize, Reduce, and Redistribute unpaid care; Reward; and Represent care workers.

Applied to disability inclusion, these principles will help us ensure that no-one is left behind.

On this International Day of Care and Support, let us commit to turning this vision into action, all together.