Opinion

When the COVID-19 virus began spreading in the spring of 2020, it hit Jessica Yanina Aveldano, a 30-year-old single mother in Argentina, especially hard. “I have multiple jobs because with one, the income isn’t enough,” Aveldano explained.  “On weekends I have to do a double shift at a bakery and my children have to come with me to work all day. I…, The diamond model, At UNICEF Argentina, we have been working to close the gap in access to family-friendly policies (FFPs), using strategies at both the macro and micro level. To do this, we are guided by the “diamond model” approach ( Razavi, 2007 ), which considers the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders on care: government, the private sector, civil…, Working with stakeholders, At the private sector level, we started the  “Empresas Que Cuidan”  (Companies that Care) initiative that gathers more than 30 companies to work on evidence, capacity building, advocacy and tools like  a digital platform for businesses  for self-assessment of their progress. At the core was a re-thinking how to keep childcare and FFPs in the…, Family-friendly policies, This strategy was echoed by Rachel Moussié from  WIEGO  – Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing – who partnered with UNICEF and ILO on a recent policy brief,  Family-friendly policies for workers in the informal economy . “Women everywhere have been hit hard by the pandemic, and there’s a real lack of childcare,” Moussié says. “…