Stage 2: Care infrastructure

💜 Summary Document

Camila Cociña, Paula Sevilla Núñez and Alexandre Apsan Frediani (IIED)

IIED's Summary Document of "The Necessary infrastructures for caring cities and regions" stage (Stage 2) of the GOLD VII on Economies of Equality and Care elaborates on the remarkable insights collected in the participatory research process together with 20+ partners. Collectively, Care infrastructures are analyzed in their physical, social and institutional dimensions. Care infrastructures emerge as a powerful tool to advance a caring lens to local and regional governance and improve the wellbeing of all people and the planet.

The Summary Document is also available: en español, en français

💗 Care and Youth

Davide Cerella, Kashish Gupta, Alice Lord and Théo Mureau (Sciences Po Paris) - Supervised by Julia Ladret

Why is youth central in and for local caring systems? This contribution drafted by four Sciences Po Capstone project students analyses various local systems of youth participation around the world under the lens of care, making a strong case for the inclusion of a significant youth dimension in caring systems and infrastructures.

💗 Future Envisioning Exercise: Towards Cities and Territories that Care for and with all People and the Planet

United Cities and Local Governments

The UCLG’s Future Envisioning Exercise (FEE) on care, held in May 2025, solidified the political collective agenda on care of the municipalist movement and its partners. In the FEE, care emerges as a powerful lens to develop cities and territories that place the wellbeing of all people and the planet at the core of public action.

💛 Careful Infrastructures: Public-Common Partnerships for a City that Cares

Bertie Russell and Keir Milburn (Abundance)

Local and regional governments have the possibility to promote care and wellbeing beyond profit. Abundance proposes a powerful care infrastructure model, Public-Common Partnerships, that can be implemented to improve the lives of our communities and prioritize access to goods and services beyond market dynamics. 

💛 Incorporating the Right to Care in Strategic Urban Planning

Centro Iberoamericano de Desarrollo Estratégico Urbano - CIDEU

How can care be integrated in strategic urban planning processes? Through a mix of examples and theoretical suggestions, CIDEU’s contribution proposes a hands-on, rights-based guide to design, implement and evaluate care infrastructures and care systems in urban planning. (This contribution is also available: en español)

💛 Governing with Care: The City of Tours’ Integrated Approach to Municipal Health and Urban Wellbeing

Florence Roger and Aude Sivigny (City of Tours)

In its insightful contribution, the city of Tours showcases its integrated approach to municipal health and urban wellbeing. Care is used by the city as a powerful lens that shapes local governance and defines policy actions and infrastructures. 

💛 Delivering Clean Water and Safely Managed Sanitation: How Water and Sanitation Utilities Advance Caring Cities

Global Water Operators’ Partnerships (GWOPA)/UN-Habitat

Water and sanitation are key public services for our cities and regions. At the same time, they are vectors of care by advancing gender equality, reducing inequalities, and promoting sustainable practices. Through compelling examples and voices from the field, GWOPA’s contribution makes a strong case for the implementation of water and sanitation services and infrastructures from a caring lens.

💛 Enabling care through Social Production of Habitat

Diana Wachira, Irene Fuertes, Sophia Torres and Yolande Hendler (Habitat International Coalition General Secretariat)

The Social Production of Habitat (SPH) is a care infrastructure that provides concrete transformative pathways for cities that aim to prioritize people, the planet and care. Habitat International Coalition discusses virtuous examples of SPH where local communities worked hand in hand with local governments to promote care and collective wellbeing in habitat.

📺 Watch our series of videos on Social Production of Habitat.

💛 Participatory housing, living with care?

Michèle Cauletin (Habitat Participatif France), Pascale Bourgeaiseau and Annie Le Roux (Hal'âge)

Participatory habitat can be a collective source of wellbeing, care, and sustainability. This contribution by the citizen movement Habitat Participatif France examines concrete experiences and outlines how participatory habitat is a type of infrastructure that allows for the incorporation of care in the everyday life of the inhabitants. (This contribution is also available: en français)

💛 Municipal Currencies as Care Infrastructures

Ester Barinaga (Lund University)

Creating the conditions for sustainable and inclusive economies at the local level is one of the main goals of subnational governments. This contribution by the Lund University professor Ester Barinaga explores the role that municipal currencies can play as care infrastructures in fostering resilient economies and strong and inclusive local democracies.

💛 Centering Care in Shaping Urban Futures

Görsev Argın Uz and Ayşe Göç Yalçınkaya (Marmara Municipalities Union)

Marmara Municipalities Union’s contribution delineates a number of care practices that are sustaining the objective of centering care in shaping urban futures. In it, steps for implementation, alongside overarching guidelines, are decisively presented for replicability in other local and regional governments.

💛 Public restaurants: Public infrastructure for the right to food

Abigail McCall and Anna Chworow (Nourish Scotland)

In its contribution, Nourish Scotland exposes the gap that exists around public infrastructure to realize the right to universal access to quality food. Public restaurants are discussed as remarkable care infrastructures, pulling together a blueprint for their replication and mainstreaming around the world.

💛 Restoring Waiwhakaata/Lake Hayes: A Community-led Path to Freshwater Care in Otago, New Zealand

Otago Regional Council and Waiwhakaata Strategy Group

The concept of care for the planet is brilliantly demonstrated by the Otago Council’s contribution, which details an inclusive community-led path to freshwater care. Five types of care infrastructures are presented as tools to advance water protection and enhance community stewardship.

💛 City-Regions and Care Infrastructures: Examining Four Cases of City-Regions in Providing Care Infrastructures

Amogh Arakali, Aratrika Debnath and Carlos José Celis (The New School)

In its contribution, The New School analyses how city-regions provide care infrastructures and address care challenges. Through four compelling examples, the paper demonstrates the potential that city-regions hold in terms of creating multilevel and multidimensional caring systems.

💛 Four infrastructures for transversally managing time and creating caring cities and regions

Marta Junqué Surià and Marc Martorell Escofet (Time Use Initiative)

Building on its contribution published in Stage 1, the Time Use Initiative proposes four actionable infrastructures to integrate time into municipal policies. These four infrastructures can advance innovative and caring approaches to local government, making time visible as a collective and public domain.

💛 Renaturing as a practice of care: Eschewing exclusionary pitfalls of green and climate policy

Barbara Lipietz and Thaisa Comelli (University College London)

UCL’s contribution analyses the practice of renaturing as an infrastructure of care. Caring for nature and through nature become two crucial dimensions that caring cities need to master in order to avoid adverse outcomes such as displacement of vulnerable populations.

💛 Co-Creating Caring Cities and Regions through Public-Community Partnerships

Kelly Agopyan, Lorena Zárate and Sophia Torres (Global Platform for the Right to the City)

How can local and regional governments work together with communities to co-create caring territories?
The care infrastructure of Public-Community Partnerships is presented by the Global Platform for the Right to the City as a compelling pathway towards the achievement of cities and regions that are able to co-construct trust, social justice and wellbeing through a caring lens. 

💛 Culture, Creativity, Care: Community Initiatives for Urban Resilience

Dwinita Larasati, Amira Rahardiani and Qonita Afnani Firdaus (Institut Teknologi Bandung)

Can we use traditional cultural practices as infrastructures of care to cultivate urban resilience?
This contribution by Dwinita Larasati, Amira Rahardiani and Qonita Afnani Firdaus puts the lens on community initiatives for urban resilience in the face of climate change and environmental risks. Cultural practices demonstrate to be important care infrastructures to support both preparedness and recovery in disaster-prone contexts.

💛 Housing as an Infrastructure of Care

Camila Cociña, Paula Sevilla Núñez and Alexandre Apsan Frediani (International Institute for Environment and Development)

Housing is a central care infrastructure. IIED’s piece discusses it from a housing justice perspective, by showing how caring approaches to housing contribute to improving the wellbeing of all people, to address and reach places that have been marginalised, and to change uncaring systems into more sustainable, caring, and justice-oriented ones. 

💛 Towards educating and caring cities: (re)thinking public spaces and infrastructures to strengthen learning and community relations

International Association of Educating Cities (AICE)

AICE’s contribution examines the ways in which cities can put care and education at the centre of their action. Re-thinking public spaces and built environments as care infrastructures that are able to strengthen learning and community relations is key for caring and educating cities. (This contribution is also available: en español)

💛 Caring for Those Who Care: Local Care Systems for and with Migrants

UCLG and the Local Coalition for Migrants and Refugees

Local care systems have the unique ability to put in place infrastructures that care for and with migrant populations. The Local Coalition for Migrants and Refugees’ contribution highlights best practices and proven infrastructures that align migration and care agendas. (Policy Note also available)

💛 Cities as Ecosystems of Care: Managing Eco-Anxiety and Transforming Consumption and Production Patterns

Members of the Research and Innovation Technical Working Group (Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy)

Care infrastructures are key in addressing the challenges brought by the changing climate. The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy’s contribution presents inspiring cases that tackle eco-anxiety and reshape systems of consumption and production in a sustainable, just and caring manner.

💛 Caring Cities in a Warming World: Building Climate-Resilient Infrastructure for Workers in Informal Employment

Ana Carolina Ogando and Marcela Valdivia (WIEGO)

In its contribution, WIEGO clearly illustrates that approaching infrastructure through a care lens fosters collective and structural solutions for climate risks affecting workers in informal employment. Title: Caring Cities in a Warming World: Building Climate-Resilient Infrastructure for Workers in Informal Employment.