The rise of feminist foreign policy (FFP) has created an opportunity to imagine new ways of implementing and prioritizing policy. While there is no single definition of or way to “do” FFP, the existing policies of various member states are shaped by different interpretations of feminism. One policy lens that has recently gained traction is the link between FFP and the care economy. The “care economy” refers to the “provision of care and services that contribute to the nurturing and reproduction of current and future populations.” This includes both paid and unpaid work, including child and elder care, healthcare, education, and domestic services. Care work can exist formally or informally and often disproportionately falls on women.

While care work is often seen as relegated to domestic affairs, several countries have recently begun to include care work and the care economy as a key theme within their FFPs. This is particularly true for Latin America, where Mexico, Colombia, and Chile have all been advancing initiatives related to care in the multilateral sphere as part of their FFPs. While care initiatives are particularly prominent in Latin America, the issue is becoming a priority in the international system as well. In fact, “recognizing and strengthening care and support systems to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” was recently adopted as the priority theme for the 72nd annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that will take place in March 2028.

The link between FFP and care is significant for two reasons. First, care-related initiatives can be one avenue to continue to strengthen feminist principles in both domestic and multilateral spaces in the face of backlash against women’s rights. Second, FFP has been critiqued for failing to recognize the inherent links between local, national, and foreign policy. Within Latin America, countries can share best practices for using care initiatives to make these links and mainstream feminist principles across policy spheres.

Why Should FFP and the Care Economy Be Linked?

The rise of anti-rights movements and gender backlash in recent years has been particularly concerning for the advancement of gender equality initiatives. According to a recent UN Women report, a quarter of all countries reported backlash against women’s rights in 2024. Some countries have also begun backtracking on their FFPs, with Sweden revoking its policy in 2022 and the Dutch government recently announcing major cuts to development cooperation and funding for women’s rights and gender equality.

In multilateral spaces such as the CSW, the risk of losing ground on previously agreed-upon language that includes strong provisions on women’s rights and gender mainstreaming looms ever present. As noted above, “Recognizing and strengthening care and support systems to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” was adopted as a priority theme for a future CSW session in the new multi-year programme of work. However, this language was watered down from the draft program, which listed the priority theme as “Transforming care systems: towards achieving sustainable development, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and accelerating implementation of the 2030 agenda.” This is only one example of the fierce debates taking place around transformative language in UN documents. This example is significant because advocates focused on care work often seek not only to recognize the burden of care that typically falls on women but also to redistribute this work. Therefore, watering down language from transforming care systems to recognizing them does not reflect the need for more substantive change.

In the face of backlash, like-minded member states have confronted a difficult choice: try to push forward on more transformative language and risk losing it or focus on protecting language that has already been agreed upon and “holding the line.” In this vein, some member states have shared that the care economy can be a strategic entry point for advancing feminist principles in policy negotiations, as the topic of care in general is sometimes less contentious than other topics related to gender equality. This may be because of its association with economic empowerment and family dynamics.

Incorporating the care economy within FFPs also helps to address the  critique that local and foreign policy efforts are inadequately linked. While there are some exceptions, FFPs are often developed in a top-down manner with little civil society input. When states with FFPs fail to “practice what they preach” by implementing feminist principles not only in their foreign policies but also in their domestic policies, they can face ethical and reputational risks among their own constituencies that undermine policy implementation. Care systems are an opportunity to link the local and multilateral levels by recognizing that broader socioeconomic dynamics often reflect more intimate power relations.

Going beyond the economic aspect of care, Fiona Robinson argues that a mainstream approach to FFP reproduces existing power hierarchies. Instead, Robinson explores how an approach centering a critical feminist ethic of care can be more radical and transformative, using “ethics as a basis for a transnational feminism.” Promoting a “feminist ethic of care” at the international level may look like deprioritizing militarization and prioritizing human security, safeguarding the intrinsic value of the environment and our relationship to it, or even leveraging diplomatic relationships to address global crises.

Latin American-led Initiatives

Feminists in Latin America have been leading on advancing the care economy as part of a transformative vision of gender equality. Experts have highlighted that the Latin America and Caribbean region is unique in that several countries’ care policies are situated within their gender equality policies (encompassing a root cause approach) rather than being siloed within economic and poverty reduction policies. Rianne Mahon emphasizes the important roles that the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Regional Conferences on Women have played by framing the transition to a care society as an alternative to extractive economies that dispossess indigenous land and livelihoods and lead to an increase in violence. Rather, ECLAC calls for “a care society that prioritizes the sustainability of life and the planet and guarantees the rights of people who require care and of those who provide care.”

Several countries in the region also link the health and care of society with the health and care of the environment at the national level. In particular, Colombia’s FFP includes the key pillars of both environmental justice and social justice and emphasizes the unequal distribution of unpaid care work. Colombia has been a leader in promoting inclusive peace processes and addressing environmental protection concerns. These national policies reflect local priorities and grassroots initiatives. For example, to help address the disproportionate amount of unpaid time women in Colombia spend caregiving, “care blocks” have been developed in Bogotá. These free services are “areas of the city where we concentrate infrastructure and services to serve caregivers and their families in a convenient and simultaneous manner.” For example, a care block might include schools, parks, elderly care centers, community laundromats, and parks within a short walk so that caregivers can save time and money and have more access to free services. In the case of Colombia, local feminist grassroots programs such as the care blocks flow upward to reflect these same values at the national and multilateral levels.

In Mexico City, similar centers called “Utopias” (Units of Transformation and Organization for Inclusion and Social Harmony or Unidades de Transformación y Organización Para la Inclusión y la Armonía Social) were developed by the mayor, Clara Brugada. These 15 centers are concentrated in an impoverished neighborhood and “promote health and wellbeing for the working classes,” with the aim of addressing inequality. The local focus on wellbeing resonates with feminist scholars who have called for policymakers in countries with FFPs to consider approaches that reflect feminist visions of a “wellbeing economy” over traditional measures of growth such as GDP. Care has been a key multilateral agenda item for Mexico, including through the promotion of UN resolutions in various bodies focused on care, and in discussions at the Third Ministerial Conference on FFP hosted in Mexico City in July 2024.

Chile’s FFP references the 15^th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean and the 2022 Buenos Aires Commitment, which charts a path toward a care society. Chile’s FFP explains that the country will seek to address care at the bilateral, multilateral, and regional level, as well as to promote co-parenting within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and apply for certification on gender equality by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In June 2024, the president signed a bill creating a national support and care system that establishes care as a right.

The prioritization of care at the local and national levels within Mexico, Chile, and Colombia (and the region overall) has translated to policy leadership on feminist values in multilateral spaces. Member states in the region agreed to advance the care society at ECLAC’s 2023 Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. At the meeting, the director of ECLAC’s Economic Development Division, Daniel Titelman, emphasized that “the care society is the horizon towards which we invite you to walk,” illustrating the care society as a transformative vision of a more sustainable future. Moreover, in March 2025, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) launched a new initiative called “IDB Cares” that aims to expand care services and infrastructure while increasing economic growth.

These multilateral initiatives create greater coherence on feminist policies across the local, national, and international levels. Recognizing the vital role of care work and transforming care systems to change the unequal distribution of labor is critical to addressing the root causes of gender inequality. Furthermore, considering that FFPs have primarily been top-down initiatives, linking them to grassroots efforts focused on care can showcase best practices and enable member states to bring feminist principles grounded in their local context to multilateral spaces. Envisioning a society that centers social, environmental, and economic wellbeing is necessary not only to realize the full potential of feminist foreign policy but also to work towards a more transformative vision of the future.

Evyn Papworth is a Policy Analyst for the Women, Peace, and Security program at the International Peace Institute.