What the PND proposes to formalize those who are caregivers

The National Development Plan 2022-2026 its transit through the Congress of the republic. After its filing two weeks ago, the coordinators and speakers were already defined, yesterday the director of the National Planning Department (DNP)Jorge Iván González, presented the project before the economic commissions of the Senate and the Chamber, and from today they will begin meetings of coordinators and speakers.

Among the issues that have attracted the most attention in the road map that Gustavo Petro proposes to the country for these four years is the creation of ‘System of Care for life and peace‘, which among its main elements, proposes the creation of a National Care System, which will be under the leadership of the Vice-Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of Equality.

This, according to the Plan, “will be based on the recognition of care as a right of people to care, to be cared for and to exercise self-care”.

Article 86 of the Plan bill establishes the creation, strengthening and integration of an offer of care services. According to the Plan, for people who require care or support, social health care services, protection and promotion of rights, capacity development and self-care services will be offered.

There is also talk of providing training and labor inclusion services and homologation of knowledge, strengthening capacities for income generation to unpaid caregivers, in addition to social services, guaranteed minimum security and social protection.

Another of the proposals contemplated in the Development Plan in this area is the formalization of domestic workers, household workers and paid caregivers, through a Registry of Domestic Work Employersiceitheradministered by the Ministry of Labour.

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And the recognition of public-popular alliances for community care, for the creation of “community care spaces”.

According to Clara Inés Pardo, tenured professor at the School of Administration of the Universidad del Rosario, “The National Development Plan is seeking to get citizens involved in the processes of prevention issues and others and is committed to a prevention approach”.

The expert also highlighted that there is a portion of caregivers who in many cases do not receive a salary or are not an active part of the population and are also entitled to a salary or social security coverage. “It is an issue that has been worked on.

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It started with mothers who are caregivers, but the entire population has not been modified, something that has been worked on in other countries due to the aging of the population,” said Pardo, who reiterated that in many cases these tasks fall on the female labor force.

The Development Plan document also establishes that, based on Law 1413 of 2010, periodic information on the care economy will be generated. And in addition, it is established that the Ministry of Equality will create the national registry of caregivers and will strengthen the measurement of needs to generate a relevant offer.

Hand in hand with this, the Plan establishes the design and development of a financing mechanism for the National Care System, in which resources from the National Government, territorial entities, national or international cooperation, donations, and other alternative sources concur.

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Finally, another point of the National Development Plan that is related to the care economy is in article 66 of the bill of the plan, which establishes the recognition of the unpaid care economy, which includes the care of its members and the domestic activities, as productive activity in the rural sector.

“The care system is a strong issue on the Latin American agenda today, and in Colombia it has been civil society that has put it at the center of the debate,” explained Ana Isabel Arenas, an intriguer at the feminist economics table at Bogota.

According to the expert, the construction of the intersectoral care tables that exist today in the country (Bogotá, Nariño, Cauca, Valle, Chocó, Antioquia and Santander) was given from Law 1413 of 2011, which includes the care economy, made up of unpaid household work, in the System of National Accounts.

“From those tables, work has been going on. With Mayor Claudia López, the creation of the care system in Bogotá was achieved; Also today in Cali there is a care system in the Undersecretariat for Women, and progress has also been made in Nariño and Antioquia,” explained the expert, who stressed that a national policy is being structured.

LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
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