29 October 2026, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka launched a five-month pilot of the Care Georeferencing Tool (CGT), a digital care planning tool developed by UNDP. This was introduced in the presence of Her Ladyship, Vraîe Cally Balthazaar, Mayor of the Colombo Municipal Council; Ms. Azusa Kubota, Resident Representative, UNDP in Sri Lanka; Ms. Sudha Gooty, UNDP Regional Advisor on Gender Equality, Mr A.D.S Rohana, Municipal Commissioner, CMC; along with other senior government officials from the CMC, Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, Department of Census and Statistics, National Child Protection Authority and technical colleagues from UNDP. 

Picture a daughter in Colombo forced to choose between keeping her job and caring for an ageing mother who needs daily support. Or a parent who knows a day-care centre exists but finds it two bus rides away. On paper, these services exist. In reality, distance and limited options can put them beyond reach, leaving families to navigate difficult choices with little support.

The CGT aims to make gaps like this visible. Colombo is growing fast, and so is the need for proper care for young children, older residents and persons with disabilities. Women and families carry much of that work unpaid. The estimated value of unpaid housework, care work, and voluntary work in Sri Lanka ranges from 10% to 42% of the GDP. Furthermore, care provision remains heavily dependent on unpaid care and domestic work, which is disproportionately undertaken by women. More than 85% of total time spent in unpaid care work is by women.  Asia-Pacific, women do 4.1 times more unpaid care work than men (ILO, 2018), and 52% of women out of work in the region cite care as the reason (ILO, 2024).

Commenting on the initiative Her Ladyship, Vraîe Cally Balthazaar, Mayor of the Colombo Municipal Council stated, “At Colombo Municipal Council, we recognise that every department plays a role in strengthening our city’s care network. Our collaboration with UNDP will enhance our knowledge, help us identify critical infrastructure needs, and empower us to make informed, people-centred decisions to build a more inclusive and caring Colombo.”

Today, care information is spread across many offices. That makes it hard to say whether services are enough or fairly distributed. The UNDP tool brings the data into one place and answers three questions: Where are the services? Where do the people who need them live? Can they actually reach them? This enables City Councils to make crucial decisions on investing in care services and can enable partnerships for both public and private sector led solutions to the provision of care. The tool can also overlay other data such as flood and disaster risk data, so planners can see which services and residents are most exposed in in case of natural disasters.

Ms. Azusa Kubota, Resident Representative, UNDP in Sri Lanka highlighted, “Care is essential infrastructure, yet too often, gaps in services remain invisible, placing a disproportionate burden on women and families. Insights from the Care Georeferencing Tool will help strengthen the Colombo Municipal Council’s ability to better address residents’ needs, and build an inclusive city that enables everyone, especially women and vulnerable groups, to participate fully in social and economic life. UNDP is proud to partner with the Colombo Municipal Council in pioneering a practical, government-owned solution that can strengthen the city’s capacity for care service provision and ensure no one is left behind.”  

The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) will lead the five-month pilot, with technical support from UNDP Sri Lanka Country Office and Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBAP). The commencement of the tool was accompanied by a capacity building session to build the capacity of the officials of the CMC, Department of Census, Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, the National Child Protection Authority and many other institutions active across the CMC area. 

The CGT tool provides governments with a comprehensive, data driven understanding of how care needs, services, and accessibility conditions are distributed across their territories. Building on a modular and replicable methodology, the tool enables countries to diagnose care gaps with precision and design targeted, equitable, and sustainable interventions. The tool has already been successfully used in city councils in eleven countries across Latin America and Africa, and has recently been piloted in Bhutan and Malaysia in the Asia-Pacific region.  At the end of the pilot, CMC will have a mapped inventory of care services, a list of underserved neighbourhoods and an interactive dashboard to decision on care policy and service provision.

This International Day of Care and Support is a reminder that building inclusive and equitable care systems is essential to realizing the rights of all those who provide and require care and support. Beyond advancing women’s empowerment, investing in care is also an economic imperative, enabling more people to participate meaningfully and productively in society and contribute to the sustainable growth of the country.

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