CARE AND SUPPORT AGENDA
Generating the evidence needed to design disability-inclusive care and support systems that enable persons with disabilities and their families to live with choice, control, full participation and dignity.
The global care agenda is expanding rapidly, but disability remains largely overlooked. People with disabilities have greater care and support needs, yet many of these needs go unmet: across countries, more than 45% report unmet care and support needs (CIP Disability Policy Insight N°2). At the same time, care responsibilities fall disproportionately on women and girls, including those with disabilities, who are also caregivers. Despite this clear overlap, care and support systems are still designed and implemented separately, with the care and disability sectors working in silos, undermining both efficacy and equity.
At CIP, we work at the intersection of disability and gender to bridge these gaps. Through research, policy engagement, and data production and analysis, we generate the evidence needed to build inclusive care and support systems, translated into actionable frameworks for local governments and international actors.
Our work highlights gaps in existing systems, uncovers unmet needs, and supports stakeholders to design more inclusive, gender-responsive, age-sensitive, and rights-based policies. It is foundational: by measuring exclusion, we can design inclusive policies that expand autonomy, reduce unmet needs, and ensure persons with disabilities are fully included in care and support systems.
Highlights
Disability Policy Insight N°2
This brief spotlight a critical gap at the intersection of disability and care: people with disabilities have greater care and support needs, yet many of these needs remain unmet. At the same time, women and girls, including those with disabilities, disproportionately provide unpaid care. The report sets out key recommendations to design care and support systems that are inclusive for all actors in care relationships and aligned with a rights-based approach.
Care Champion Recognition
CIP was recognised as a Care Champion for its leadership in advancing disability-inclusive care and support systems at the 2024 Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+30 Review. The recognition was received by Senior Research Associate Meenakshi Balasubramanian, whose work has been instrumental in bridging the gap between disability and care and support policy through research, budget analysis, and engagement with national and international stakeholders.
This event was hosted by the United Nations ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) and UN Women, with the support of the Alianza Global por los Cuidados and in collaboration with Oxfam and The World Bank Group.
Regional Engagement on Care and Disability (Latin America & Caribbean)
During the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, CIP took part in several key moments. Deputy Director Maria Ní Fhlatharta and Senior Research Associate Maria Antonella Pereira presented our policy brief on disability and care, outlining CIP’s strategy for a rights-based care agenda.
At the Global Alliance for Care’s Annual Meeting, Pereira highlighted the need to embed disability rights in the Alliance’s 2025–2027 plan. CIP also co-organized Care and Support: Challenges and Opportunities for an Inclusive Gender and Disability Agenda with Mujeres Mexicanas Con Discapacidad and Women Enabled International, and hosted Inclusion, Coffee & Networking to foster reflection and alliance-building. The conference was a week of real momentum toward a rights-based, inclusive vision of care.
High-Level Dialogue on Care and Support Systems
Deputy Director María Ní Fhlatharta joined a high-level conversation on care and support systems, exploring how economic and social policies can be grounded in human rights.
The discussion positioned the care and support economy as part of a broader human rights economy, one that seeks to uphold the rights of both those providing and those receiving care, while reducing inequalities in access and provision. It also explored how States can design care and support systems anchored in human rights, including the role of macroeconomic frameworks in addressing gender inequalities and advancing disability inclusion.
“A false narrative has been established, as if persons with disabilities were passive recipients of care. All human beings require care and support at some point in their lives. No one is an island.”
International Women’s Day (2026)
CIP convened a discussion with Senior Associates on the key challenges facing the gender and disability movement, with a particular focus on the care agenda. The conversation explored why women with disabilities must be at the centre of care policy debates and identified priority actions to build more inclusive, equitable care and support systems.
