Summary:

• Outreach meeting convened with UN Women Uganda with several organisations, including civil society, INGOs, and government ministries and agencies in attendance.
• GrOW Unpaid Care Work Project Uganda team led by Principal Investigator presented baseline findings from study being undertaken.
• It was agreed that systemic structural challenges pose one of the biggest hurdles to change and must be addressed at the national level to reduce the burden of UCW. [these include social services, including access to clean water, energy saving cooking technologies among others.]
• It was agreed that a community of practice be formed where different agencies come together to amplify common issues around UCW. Meetings would be taking place quarterly and one issue at a time would be tackled.

Narrative:

Several organisations in Uganda have agreed to form a community of practice club to advocate for the issues around unpaid care work in the country.

This came after the GrOW consortium Unpaid Care Work project in Uganda led by Makerere University School of Women and Gender Studies presented baseline studying findings on UCW issues in the country at like-minded organisation meeting convened by UN Women in Uganda.

Other members of the project are Care International in Uganda, and Economic Policy Research Centre. In attendance were Oxfam, FOWADE, UWONET, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

The study results, presented by the principal investigator Prof Grace Kyomuhendo-Bantebya, indicated that Ugandan women spend more than five and a half hours per day doing unpaid care work. Men only spend 3.5 hours on unpaid care work.

On the other hand, men spend at least 7.4 hours compared to 5.3hrs for women in paid employment. This corroborates previous findings that the burden for UCW continue to be borne by women.

The study captured cultural beliefs as the biggest contributor to the burden falling on women. Study respondents identified the most problematic activities to do in households as water collection, fuel/firewood collection and taking care of children.

At the meeting, aimed at briefing several stakeholders on what was going on, Prof. Bantebya observed that systemic structural matters must be addressed if the UCW burden was to be reduced. This would involve government intentional spending in areas that impact unpaid care work, including provision energy saving stoves, cooking gas, water collection points in water starved communities among other things.

A meeting convened by UN Women Uganda where the GrOW consortium presented baseline findings on unpaid care work in Uganda

Prof. Bantebya said: “[That for me] is a matter of urgency that we must advocate. The parliament can allocate funds [for the same]. We are dealing with structural matters that must be addressed at the national level”.

Ms. Agnes Kisembo, the UN Women Program Specialist, noted that the issue of social infrastructure was important and need strategic thinking for proposals to be picked up by policy makers.

She said: “What strategic interventions do we include under social infrastructure. Where do we prioritize our investments.  If we pick out good lessons, examples, other local governments will be interested.”

She added: “When you make it easy for both men and women to participate, it is automatic that things will change.  Simple ways of convincing policymakers but we need to tease out potential investment areas that can convince government officials and technocrats that [something is worth to put money].”

Prof Grace Bantebya-Kyomuhendo presenting the findings at UN women offices.

The teams then agreed to form a community of practice to advance these issues. It will be first convened by UN Women Uganda office, will subsequently be held on rotational basis.

Prepare for Changes in the community.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Gender at Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development Ms. Angella Nakafeero said the GrOW Unpaid Care Work Project was impacting changes in communities and that required that communities be prepared for the same.

“The change is being misunderstood by both men and women which means to me that we didn’t take deliberate effort to prepare men and boys; women and girls for what we are witnessing. So, we find a lot of resistance on either side,” she said.

“Women are saying no, we must remain a typical woman, a typical wife and men are saying please take us slow. Even those who are willing are saying take us slow or holding back a bit.”