Care is the invisible infrastructure of every city. It shapes who can work, study and participate socially and economically. Yet care is rarely mapped, which means governments often lack a clear view of where needs are greatest, where services exist and who can reach them. 

The Care Georeferencing Tool is an open-source UNDP geospatial methodology built for national ownership. It maps and analyses care supply, demand and reachability to reveal care deserts, where need is high and services are out of reach. This helps governments target investment where it can reduce unmet need the most. 

What the tool analyses 

• Supply shows where care services are located across public, private, community and informal provision. 
• Demand shows where care-dependent people live, including children, older persons and persons with disabilities. 
• Reachability shows whether people can actually reach services given roads, public transport, distance and terrain. 

The tool brings together multiple data sources that are cleaned and harmonized into one verified register. These can include administrative records, web-scraped and crowd-mapped data, field mapping, census and household surveys, high-resolution population estimates, travel-time data, and climate and disaster datasets. 

Evidence ready to act on 

• Coverage maps show which areas can reach services and which areas are underserved. 
• Care desert zones show where high need meets low reachability and where investment is needed most. 
• Population estimates show how many children, older persons and persons with disabilities live in care deserts. 
• Investment priorities show where new facilities and services could reach the most underserved populations. 
• A citizen dashboard can show nearby services, wait times and coverage status. 

One database with two ways to use it 

An internal map gives government planners a decision-support tool for budgeting, staffing and infrastructure planning. A public map helps residents and caregivers find nearby services, understand what each service offers and reach the right service from where they are. 

Where inclusion and climate meet 

Care gaps can be overlaid with climate and disaster data to identify places where limited access to care and climate hazards coincide. This helps cities protect communities at risk of being left out and target more resilient care investments. 

Built for national ownership 

The methodology is open source and designed so governments can apply, sustain and adapt it to their own context. It works with facility locations and aggregated population grids. No personal data are collected or published, and all outputs follow UNDP data protection standards. Implementation is underway in Bhutan and Malaysia, with the methodology adaptable to different data environments and care priorities across Asia and the Pacific. 

UNDP RBAP is adapting the tool for Asia-Pacific, with Bhutan and Malaysia as the first entry points for adaptation and deployment in May 2026.