Montevideo, 29 April 2025

The launch event for the webinar series “Professionalising Care, Transforming the Region” took place, an initiative promoted by ILO/Cinterfor and the Regional Network for Training and Certification in Care. This series is part of the project Strengthening South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Skills Development and Lifelong Learning in the Care Economy, supported by the ILO’s Emerging and Special Partnerships Unit in Geneva.

Since late 2021, the region has been building a common agenda around care work, with the creation of a network comprising 55 members from 18 institutions across 13 countries. This technical network, coordinated by Cinterfor, promotes the development of shared frameworks for professionalisation, certification, and the improvement of working conditions in the care sector.

The opening session focused on the need for common competency standards and occupational profiles in the care sector — a key requirement for advancing the professional recognition of care workers and improving the quality of both employment and services provided.

Gender inequalities and the lack of decent work in the care sector were highlighted in the shared analysis. According to recent data from the ILO and ECLAC:

• 76.2% of unpaid care work is carried out by women.

• In 2023, 95% of those excluded from the global labour force due to care responsibilities were women.

• By 2030, the region is expected to need at least 19 million additional care jobs to meet growing demand.

• Women with lower levels of education and those living in rural areas face greater barriers to entering the labour market due to care responsibilities.

In light of this situation, participants emphasised the urgent need to build a “care society”, as proposed by ECLAC, and to transform the care economy in line with the ILO’s recent resolution on Decent Work and the Care Economy (2024), which promotes the “5Rs” framework: Recognise, Reduce, Redistribute, Reward, and Represent care work.

Presentations during the session included:

• Uruguay, represented by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, shared its experience with labour market demand forecasting studies in the care sector.

• Mexico, through CONOCER, presented its progress on labour competency standards in care, drawing on its extensive experience in certification processes.

• Anastasiia Pavlova, from the Emerging and Special Partnerships Unit (ESPU) of the ILO’s Department of Multilateral Partnerships and Development Cooperation in Geneva, offered reflections on the opportunities for regional coordination around common qualification frameworks, highlighting the potential of international cooperation to advance this agenda.

The event concluded with a space for participant exchange, where the need to build regional instruments that respect national contexts — yet allow for the recognition and valuing of care workers’ skills — was strongly emphasised. Such tools are seen as vital for promoting mobility, access to training, and improved working conditions in the care sector.