Bhutan to pilot Care Georeferencing Tool to strengthen care planning

The tool will be piloted in Thimphu from June to November 2026, helping map care needs, existing services, accessibility gaps, and investment priorities.

June 2, 2026

Two people sit on ground among trees; one in striped orange shirt, the other in a dark hoodie.

Care is what keeps families, communities and economies going. Yet the work of caring for children, older persons, and people with disabilities often remains invisible in planning and overlooked in public investment.

Bhutan is now taking a step to change that.

From June to November, Thimphu will pilot the Care Georeferencing Tool, an innovative spatial analysis tool developed by UNDP to help planners see where care is needed most, where services already exist, and where the biggest gaps remain. By turning care into something visible on a map, the tool aims to support smarter, fairer decisions about where to invest.

The pilot is being led by the Department of Human Settlement under the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, in partnership with Thimphu City and UNDP.

Four presenters on a stage during a national launch event; projector slide displays title and logos.

How does it work?

At its core, the tool brings together two critical sets of information: where people need care, and where care services are currently available. It will map the location of people who require care support, including older persons, young children, and persons with disabilities, alongside the location of existing services such as childcare centres and community facilities.

Once these layers are combined, the tool will generate a digital care map for Thimphu. That map will help identify mismatches between need and service availability, making it easier for planners and decision-makers to see which communities are underserved and where resources should go first.

In practical terms, that means less guesswork and more evidence-based planning. Instead of making assumptions about where support is needed, the city will be able to plan with greater precision and direct investments to the places that need them most.

The experience in Thimphu is expected to help shape future efforts to scale up and replicate the approach in other parts of the country.

Sudha Gooty, Head of Gender for Asia and the Pacific, UNDP, walked the stakeholders through the details of the Care Georeferencing Tool at the launch of the Thimphu pilot

UNDP/Mizuki Dohi

“We see the Care Georeferencing Tool not as a standalone project, but as a step toward a planning culture that takes seriously the spatial dimensions of social reproduction, one that treats care infrastructure as no less essential to urban life than roads or buildings,” said Wangda Dorji, Director of the Department of Human Settlement.

Photograph of a man at a podium delivering a slide presentation. — Wangda Dorji, Director, Department of Human Settlements, Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport

UNDP/Mizuki Dohi

Sangay Wangmo, Head of Governance at UNDP, said the initiative goes beyond mapping and data. “It is about ensuring that care is better understood, valued, and supported, and that policies and investments respond to real needs so that no one, especially women and girls, is left behind. In other words, it is about addressing unequal distribution of unpaid care work as a critical development issue.”

Sangay Wangmo, Head of Governance, UNDP

UNDP/Mizuki Dohi

Why this matters for Bhutan

The pilot comes at a time when unpaid care and domestic work continues to shape the lives and opportunities of many women and girls in Bhutan.

Although Bhutan has made important progress on gender equality, care responsibilities remain unevenly shared. Women and girls spend about 2.5 times more time on unpaid care work than men, according to Bhutan’s national research on unpaid care work. This affects their ability to take up paid work, pursue leadership opportunities, and participate fully in public life.

These pressures became even more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, when care responsibilities increased sharply for women and girls, reflecting a broader global pattern. At the same time, unequal access to affordable, quality childcare, eldercare, and support services for persons with disabilities continues to limit options for many families.

The consequences reach far beyond the household. Women’s labour force participation remains lower than men’s, and women are still underrepresented in leadership and decision-making. At the same time, broader trends such as ageing, urbanization, outmigration, and climate change are increasing both the need for care and the challenge of meeting it.

Recent studies such as the Accounting for Unpaid Care Work in Bhutan 2019 and Valuing Unpaid Care Work in Bhutan both underline how deeply care is tied to economic participation, wellbeing, and social policy.

Strengthening Bhutan’s care system is therefore not only a gender equality issue. It is also closely linked to the country’s broader development ambitions, including the goals of the 13th Five-Year Plan, the National Gender Equality Policy, and Bhutan’s aspiration of becoming a high-income Gross National Happiness economy by 2034.

Against this backdrop, the Care Georeferencing Tool is more than a pilot. It is an important step towards making care visible, valued, and built into the way cities are planned and resources are allocated so that no one, especially women and girls who dispropriatenately bear the burden of care work are not left behind.