The workshop “The Future is Care: A Participatory Foresight Workshop on Inclusive and Resilient Care Systems” is organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), with the support of the Global Alliance for Care (GAC), as part of the Global Alliance for Care’s Care Pavilion at the Women Deliver Conference 2026.
The Care Pavilion will take place from 26 April to 1 May 2026 at the Melbourne Multicultural Hub in Melbourne, Australia, alongside the Women Deliver Conference (27–30 April 2026).
The care economy is increasingly recognized as a strategic pillar of inclusive, resilient, and sustainable development. Yet across Asia and the Pacific, care systems remain structurally undervalued and underinvested, with far-reaching implications for gender equality, labour markets, and social protection. Women and girls continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work, constraining their access to decent work, income opportunities, and entrepreneurship.
At the same time, care systems are being reshaped by interconnected megatrends, including demographic change, climate change, digitalization, urbanization, and inequality. These trends are not only sources of pressure, but also drivers of transformation - creating new risks, opportunities, and policy choices in how care is organized, delivered, and valued.
Against this backdrop, the workshop applies a strategic foresight approach to explore how care systems may evolve under different future conditions and to identify policy pathways that are robust under uncertainty. It also contributes to ESCAP’s forthcoming analytical work, “The Future is Care,” which examines multiple plausible futures and their implications for inclusive and resilient care systems.
Bringing together policymakers, development partners, civil society, researchers, and other stakeholders, the workshop will feature interactive dialogue and scenario-based exercises. Participants will explore four alternative futures - continued growth, collapse, discipline, and transformation - and reflect on their implications for care systems, actors, and policy responses.
Specifically, the workshop will:
- Strengthen understanding of the care economy as a strategic entry point for advancing gender equality and women’s economic empowerment;
- Explore how major megatrends are reshaping care systems across diverse contexts;
- Examine alternative future scenarios and their implications for care needs, systems, and stakeholders;
- Identify forward-looking and adaptable policy entry points;
- Generate participatory insights to inform ESCAP’s analytical work on the future of care.
The workshop will contribute to strengthening multi-stakeholder dialogue and advancing forward-looking approaches to building inclusive and resilient care systems in the region and beyond.