Addressing Paid Care Work Conditions for Women and Girls in Kenya and Malawi: Introducing the ACT Project

The global policy agenda recognizes a pressing need to address women’s and girls’ disproportionate and heavy responsibility for care work and the poor working conditions of care workers. 

Women are overrepresented within the largely informal paid childcare economy, where they face low pay and rights abuses. This also affects the quality of care services and the value placed on their work. 

Women are also disproportionately affected by a lack of access to quality childcare services, limiting their ability to pursue economic opportunities. By providing women with access to reliable childcare, their employment rates, income levels, and economic empowerment increase dramatically. 

Paid childcare has emerged as a crucial opportunity to address the ever-growing need for quality childcare. However, the sector operates with minimal support from existing legal frameworks and lacks comprehensive standards to ensure the well-being of both providers of care and children. The absence of regulatory oversight not only subverts the quality of care provided but also perpetuates systemic imbalances in the demand and supply side of care.

Why action on paid care?

There are many challenges facing the paid childcare sector including:

• Insufficient research and data on women working in childcare; 
• Limited legal, policy, and regulatory framework for childcare;
• A poorly trained childcare workforce, including limited capacity to address children with disabilities; 
• Inconsistent quality of childcare services available;
• Limited psychosocial and safeguarding support for women working in childcare; and
• Insufficient investment in women-led childcare businesses 

The Action for paid Childcare sector Transformation (ACT) is a new project funded by Global Affairs Canada being implemented in Kenya and Malawi. ACT supports local ecosystem actors to drive gender-transformative collaborative action. 

Some of the interventions include:

• Organizing women childcare providers and strengthening their representation and voice to reforms that affect them;
• Equipping and motivating governments to respond and implement needed childcare policy and regulatory reforms;
• Helping training and facilitation bodies to professionalize, improve quality, and support greater recognition of the value of paid childcare work;
• Gaining commitment and support from communities, placement agencies, and the wider ecosystem to champion and uphold the rights of women childcare providers; and
• Equipping finance and business services providers to respond to the financial and business needs of women childcare providers.

Using a systems approach, ACT seeks to enhance the capacity of local ecosystem actors to collaboratively influence and transform the factors that contribute to low pay and poor working conditions for women working in the childcare space. 

Collaborating with local partners to create sustainable change

Women’s Legal Resources Centre: Women’s Rights Organization in Malawi that facilitates increased access to legal, socio-political, and economic justice for women and girls. 

Coalition on Violence Against Women: Kenyan Women’s Rights Organization that exists to champion the rights of women and girls to be free from all forms of violations. Conducts evidence-based advocacy, community mobilization, and dialogue, campaigns, and capacity-building. 

Our collaboration with local women’s rights organizations is a cornerstone of this project. By centering feminist principles and prioritizing women’s issues specific to the sector, we ensure that our actions are not only relevant but also necessary. This local engagement is vital in crafting responses that truly reflect the needs of women in the community. 

ACT is fostering collaboration among stakeholders to collectively address and transform the underlying factors that contribute to the low pay and poor working conditions faced by women who work as paid childcare workers. By focusing on systems change rather than isolated interventions, we can create a more sustainable and equitable environment for these workers. 

The potential for impact in Kenya and Malawi is significant. Our activities are designed to focus on gender-transformative policies and curriculum reforms that can apply across various sectors. By advocating for and implementing these changes, we aim to create a robust framework that not only improves conditions for women in childcare but also encourages other sectors to act. This could lead to lasting improvements in women’s rights and economic empowerment.

Learn more about our work in the paid childcare sector.