The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. To mark that day at CIP, we sat down with three of our Senior Associates to reflect on topics that particularly concern women with disabilities, especially the CARE AGENDA. We discussed why women with disabilities must be central to the global care and support conversation and what policies are needed to build truly inclusive systems.
The care agenda is a global movement to ensure societies adequately recognise, redistribute, reward, and represent care work, while also reducing unpaid care work. Policy frameworks grounded in the care agenda seek to support caregivers, especially unpaid family caregivers who are typically women and girls, while also ensuring care is provided to those who require it.
Persons with disabilities, both those providing and receiving care, are directly impacted by the care agenda. Despite this, disability is often overlooked, with most policy debates focusing primarily on gender rather than on the care and support needed to ensure the autonomy and inclusion of persons with disabilities.
Why is it important to talk about girls and women with disabilities on International Women’s Day?
Mónica: Women and girls with disabilities face a double source of discrimination (gender and disability). They usually present worse outcomes in aspects related to health, education and employment. For example, they present lower education levels compared to men/boys with disabilities and women without disabilities. They are usually invisible in mainstream policies to support and include women and girls in general, because their specific needs are not recognised, and at some points, there are assumptions regarding the use of services.
In this context, it is fundamental to recognise that women and girls with disabilities need to be centered in gender policies, and it is fundamental that strategies to support their needs are established. Finally, the sustainable development agenda calls for Leaving No One Behind, which implies that women and girls with disabilities are supported and explicitly included in different policies and programmes.
“Women and girls with disabilities need to be explicitly mentioned in gender policies.”
María: On this day, we should also reflect on how we ensure that women and girls can benefit from public initiatives, including women with disabilities. This goes beyond simply thinking about accessibility, although that is also necessary and often missing in public provision of services.
It also involves ensuring that we think about how the lived experience of being a woman with a disability is different, and hence how policies and programs should be tailored to address their needs to ensure equal participation in social and economic life.
How can feminist and disability-rights movements work together towards an inclusive care agenda?
María: Before discussing how different movements can work together toward an inclusive care agenda, I think we should discuss why. Although they have often operated in siloes, the care agenda and the disability sector share core goals, mainly promoting economic autonomy, social participation, and addressing unmet care and support needs within families. Because of these shared goals, we should learn from the contributions of both movements in the development of public policy.
For instance, the disability movement’s experience with independent living and deinstitutionalisation should be seriously incorporated into care policy. On the other hand, people with disabilities have greater support needs on average that often go unmet, and women with disabilities are both care recipients and primary caregivers themselves, often with limited support. Taking these overlapping realities seriously is essential if care policies are to reflect disability inclusion, and disability policies are to consider care needs.
Mónica: Yes, and effectively, the aspect that is fundamental in the design and implementation of an inclusive care agenda is to understand the role that people with disabilities play in it. For example, although traditional care policies have assumed that all people with disabilities have what has been termed problematically “dependency”, in reality, only a relatively small percentage of people with disabilities have high support needs that require care, and in many cases, they need some support, but they do not require care all the time.
Thus, it is fundamental to understand and acknowledge that disability is not a synonym of dependency and that women and men with disabilities are providers of care and are active actors in the care agenda.
“Women with disabilities, particularly those experiencing extensive restriction to participation and high support needs, are also excluded from discussions about women.”
Meenakshi: It is also important to acknowledge that women with disabilities, particularly those experiencing extensive restriction to participation and high support needs, are also excluded from discussions about women in general and women with disabilities in particular. This limits our understanding of the diversity of issues experienced by individuals across movements.
For the feminist movement, indeed for any other movement for change, it is essential to ensure full and effective participation of all key stakeholders, including women and girls with disabilities experiencing extensive restriction due to their intersectional identities. Inclusive engagement is essential to advancing equitable reforms and strengthening collective advocacy.
What are the key knowledge gaps that constrain the development of disability-inclusive care policies?
Mónica: Some of the most important gaps are those related to unmet care and support needs among persons with disabilities. In most care programs, it is assumed that people with disabilities are “dependent” and all of them need care and support. However, little information exists regarding the type and intensity of care that people with disabilities require and how much these needs can be covered by human support or rather other types of support, such as assistive technology.
Moreover, there is limited data on the extent to which persons with disabilities are satisfied with the quantity and quality of care and support received, be it from their family members or formal services. Gathering information on these aspects is fundamental to designing and implementing disability inclusive care policies in low- and middle-income countries.
Meenakshi: There is also a practical knowledge gap. In many low- and middle-income countries, families are still seen as the primary providers of care and support—including for persons with disabilities. While this has been the norm, the disability movement in many countries has only recently begun to push for policies and programs that establish formal care and support services. Governments often lack a clear roadmap for how to provide community-based care while moving away from outdated, long-term institutional models.
“Governments often lack a clear roadmap for how to provide community-based care while moving away from outdated, long-term institutional models.”
To date, community-based rehabilitation models in many countries are yet to create an impact that shifts government investment away from institutionalisation to community-based services. This raises critical questions: If we don’t have institutionalisation, what programs exist? What programs need to be developed, and how much would that cost? Learning from successful practices in different countries and contexts will be crucial to filling this knowledge gap.
María: I think another key knowledge gap concerns caregivers with disabilities. While the care agenda has generated extensive evidence on caregivers, who are typically women and girls and often forego education, work, and well-being to provide care, this research rarely accounts for caregivers with disabilities.
Emerging evidence suggests they represent a substantial share of caregivers. For instance, in a recent CIP study that Monica and I coauthored, we found that over 35% of adults with disabilities in Bogota are caregivers. Similar results are starting to emerge from other contexts. Since such a large share of caregivers have disabilities, it is essential for care policy to consider their characteristics, as well as their disability-specific needs associated with caregiving.
However, without more research, it is not possible to know what those needs are and how these caregivers face different and even additional barriers relative to other caregivers.
We extend our sincere appreciation to Senior Research Associates María Antonella Pereira, Meenakshi Balasubramanian and Mónica Pinilla-Roncancio for their contributions to CIP’s work on the care agenda.
Their leadership, analytical expertise, and commitment to rights-based policy have been central to advancing our mission: promoting evidence-based, inclusive public policies that uphold the rights and full participation of persons with disabilities.
Grounded in this mission, we are pleased to share the following reports to which CIP has contributed.
- “Unsatisfied Care Needs of Adults with Disabilities in Bogota, Colombia“. Disabilities 6, no. 1: 7. MDPI. Pinilla-Roncacio, Mónica; and Pereira, María Antonella; 2026.
- ”Disability Policy Insights Disability Inclusion in the Care Agenda.” Policy Brief N°2. Center for Inclusive Policy. Pereira, María Antonella. 2025.
- “The Direct Costs of Disability to Families in Tamil Nadu.” Center for Inclusive Policy. Balasubramanian, Meenakshi. 2024.
- “The Cost of Raising a Child with Disabilities in Georgia.” UNICEF. Bagrationi, Maia. 2023.
- “Apoyos para la vida en comunidad: el presente y futuro de la inclusión de personas con discapacidad en América Latina.” Center for Inclusive Policy, UNICEF. Pereira, María Antonella; Pinilla-Roncacio, Mónica; and Vásquez Encalada, Alberto. 2023.
- “The Disability Support Gap: Community Support Systems for Persons with Disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” Center for Inclusive Policy for UNICEF, ILO and UNPRPD. Vásquez Encalada, Alberto; Gupta, Shivani; Cote, Alexandre; Tahchareun, Tom; Ghanem, Ahmed; Pereira, María Antonella; and Lippi, Louisa. 2023.
- “Autonomy: A Regional Challenge – Building Systems of Support for Community Living for People with Disabilities in Latin America an the Caribbean.” CAF – Banco de desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe. Vásquez Encalada, Alberto; and Pereira, María Antonella Pereira. 2023.