Our role as social change process facilitators has allowed us to generate a set of innovative models and solutions with the potential to be scaled, through working in alliances, and strengthening and linking with different actors. Our interventions contribute to designing and implementing public policies in favor of the most vulnerable populations. CARE contributes to achieving lasting and significant impacts on poverty eradication and social justice, in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gender equality (SDG 5) is at the core of our programmatic ambitions and permeates all of our work.
As a member of the CARE International Confederation, our goal is to achieve social justice through gender equality. This means improving access to resources and opportunities for girls and women. To this end, we will continue to facilitate coordination and dialogue processes with local and regional governments, ministries, social organizations, the private sector, academia and international cooperation to establish the necessary agreements that promote social change and the search for sustainable solutions.
We use evidence and learning from our programs to influence more broadly and to take effective solutions to scale.
In all three roles, CARE works in partnership with a wide range of actors from civil society, governments and the private sector. Each of these actors has a critical and complementary role.
we respond to emergency situations to save lives, paying special attention to the needs of women, girls and the most vulnerable populations. Our humanitarian action includes preparedness and early action, as well as response and recovery. It is also the pillar for equitable post-emergency development.
our programs use innovative solutions for sustainable development, promoting the development of pilots and models that allow better access to essential services, capacity building, risk reduction and vulnerable people empowerment, particularly women and girls. Our programs are based on a deep understanding of the factors that drive poverty and social injustice in each context, paying special attention to marginalized needs and the structural causes of poverty and exclusion. We focus on addressing the search for joint solutions –together with our partners and allies– that will allow us to achieve a greater right to health and quality education; the right to a free life without violence; the right to food and nutrition security; the right to water, the conservation of the environment and biodiversity in a context of climate change, as well as on the economic empowerment of women and financial inclusion so that more women have the same access and control over economic resources, assets and opportunities. Evidence and learning from programs are essential to our third role which amplifies our post-emergency equitable impact.
All of our work aims to impact the communities we work in and beyond. We use evidence and learning from our humanitarian action and long-term development programs to influence broader social change.
It is through this role that CARE can contribute to a deeper and more sustainable impact, documenting successful models, promoting knowledge, influencing adoption and expansion of proven approaches, advocating for public policies in favor of the poorest and excluded people, influencing decision-makers at all levels to change policies and practices; and meditating dialogue among actors.
We thank all our partners, allies and donors for the trust they placed in CARE last year. We encourage you to always continue working together and to continue gathering forces until the end of poverty.
In the last year we have experienced unprecedented social transformations, marked by uncertainty, but also by collective efforts to overcome the current economic and health crisis.
Although all of us have been affected by the crisis, we have not been affected in the same way or to the same extent. There is no doubt that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities between women and men in almost all areas of life, both in Peru and in the world, reversing the hard-won achievements obtained in the last years in terms of closing gaps and gender equality.
Unpaid care work carried out by women, as well as unequal work distribution in households, have been further deepened by measures taken in response to COVID-19, which led to the closure of schools, public spaces and care services. Likewise, several reports reveal that the risk of all types of gender-based violence against women and girls, especially domestic violence, has intensified.
This context poses a threat to women’s participation in economic activities. Even more so if we consider that women are more likely to participate in informal economic activities that represent 67.7% of our economic structure. Such disparities are even more pronounced for women from vulnerable populations, such as ethnic and/or migrant and refugee women, who have even higher rates of participation in the informal, or independent, labor force.
Besides, measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 have accelerated the speed of employment and education digitization. However, this accelerated pace of migration to digital platforms runs the risk of deepening existing gender inequalities, when these are not accompanied by viable strategies for digital inclusion with a gender perspective.
Response efforts against COVID-19 have also been conducted by diverse women as leading actors in the first line of response and essential services. Women represent 74% of the global workforce in the health sector and are more likely to be part of the frontline health workforce, especially nurses, midwives and community health workers. They also make up the majority of service personnel in health facilities – such as cleaning, laundry, and food service staff – and, as such, are more likely to be exposed to the virus.
CARE Peru remains committed to integrating significant and transformative actions to overcome inequalities. Through different interventions, we seek to attain the following, throughout our program cycle:
