New Project on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work

Text by: Natacha Anne Kim

Oxfam kicked-off a new project called “Accelerating Gender Equality through Care Responsiveness” (AGENT-Care) with the support of the Embassy of Ireland (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) to stimulate public conversation and policy dialogue on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW) in Cambodia.

The kick-off meeting was held on 19 January 2024 at Oxfam to introduce the project to key government stakeholders and civil society partners, whose participation in the project’s activities will be crucial to achieve its goal. The project aims to create an increasingly enabling environment that supports the development of a care economy, where women’s care responsibilities are recognized, valued, and fairly shared. To contribute to this goal, evidence-based data will be generated and used to support policy making processes, raise awareness and foster public dialogue.

Key project interventions include the conduct of a Household Care Survey pilot, the development of a contextualized training package on UCDW for policymakers and civil society, support to Gender-Mainstreaming Action Groups coordination, and a public campaign on UCDW in close collaboration with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA).

Mr. Seán Farrell, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Ireland via Zoom interlink, welcomed the project as the start of a new relationship for Ireland, which specifically identified Cambodia as a country in which to grow and develop its program portfolio over the next five years. In particular, Ireland’s context-specific support in Cambodia will focus on the impact of UCDW on gender equality.

“We would like to thank Oxfam for developing a very strong program of work, and particularly looking at the situation of those who are caregivers, in comparison to their male counterparts,” he said.
H.E. Chhun Hak The, Director General of the General Directorate of Gender Equality and Economic Development at MoWA, highlighted that the AGENT-Care project is in line with the Ministry’s priority to develop and implement a Framework and Action Plan on Care and a key example of the collaborative work with Oxfam.

Thanks to the active participation of key government institutions, such as the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and civil society partners, the kick-off meeting identified common areas of interests and future collaboration opportunities during the life of the project.