IBRD Trust Funds - World Bank

Published purpose

The Catalysing Childcare Action program with the World Bank will address concerns facing governments in their fight against inequalities and poverty and the unequal distribution of care work exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The overarching goal of the program will be to support a gender-responsive post-pandemic recovery through supporting women’s return to work, facilitating children's – particularly girls’ – return to school, and enabling job creation in the childcare sector. Empowering women and girls, promoting childcare and addressing paid and unpaid care work key priorities for the Government of Canada and for the implementation of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), specifically in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery. The program will promote operational work and research in approximately over 40 low-and middle-income countries, and use this work to increase the interest of governments to prioritize and address childcare in the context of increasingly constrained resources.