Press Statement: EU–LAC Bi-regional Pact on Care
Today, the European Union, together with 16 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (Colombia, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay), launched the Bi-regional Pact on Care — a framework for cooperation that places the well-being, dignity and equality of people at the heart of the EU–LAC partnership. The declaration remains open to the endorsement of other LAC countries.
The Pact establishes an open, values-based forum for a permanent dialogue aimed at strengthening care systems and ensuring that access to quality and affordable care services becomes a shared priority across both regions. It will also promote a better distribution of care responsibilities between families, the private sector and the State, as well as between women and men.
This initiative responds to the similar challenges that Europe and LAC face in this field: a growing demand for care, due to the rapid population ageing, and an increasingly balanced distribution of domestic and professional responsibilities within families, which is met by shortages of qualified professionals, precarious working conditions for caregivers, and the need to better recognise and address the burden of unpaid carework. It also reflects our shared determination to protect the most vulnerable and to recognise the importance of care work as a driver of social justice, inclusive growth, and human development.
High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas stated: “Amid rapid population aging, there is a growing demand for care and caregivers across the world. In the EU, Latin America and the Caribbean alone, millions of people need or provide care every day. In this context, our regions have signed a new Pact on Care to strengthen cooperation on the care economy. In practice this means regular exchanges between our regions on everything from how to strengthen care systems to the distribution of care duties and addressing the burden of unpaid care work. It is the first time we will have a permanent channel to discuss social affairs and underlines a shared commitment to equal and dignified care”.
The Bi-regional Pact on Care builds on the momentum of key regional and multilateral commitments that call for care work to be recognised, valued, and fairly distributed at the global level. These include the European Care Strategy, the Buenos Aires Commitment, the Tlatelolco Commitment, and the 2023 proposal for a Bi-regional Pact for Care drafted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). It is also in line with the principles and priorities set out in CEDAW, ILO Conventions 189 and 156, the conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women in 2022, 2024 and 2025, the UN policy paper “Transforming Care Systems”, and supports progress towards SDGs 5.4, 3, 8 and 10.
It also answers a longstanding call from civil society organisations across both regions, whose constant engagement and advocacy since the III EU-CELAC Summit in 2023 (when they already requested the Pact on Care as a possible deliverable), have been instrumental in achieving this initiative now.
The Pact will serve as a permanent forum for dialogue and cooperation on the legal, social and economic dimensions of care systems. Participating countries will designate focal points to exchange experiences and good practices on care policies and programmes, care infrastructure and institutional architecture, professionalisation and training of care workers, measures to better recognise and reduce the burden of unpaid care work, and the causes and implications of global care chains, among numerous other matters. The Pact will also enable comparative and joint studies on care-related issues, and it will foster cooperation on care-related initiatives at national, regional and multilateral levels, with a focus on innovation, adaptation to the different local contexts and progress measurement.
The EU-LAC Foundation will have a prominent role in the implementation of the Pact, as it will support the organisation of its meetings among officials of EU Member States and institutions and of the participating LAC countries. The Foundation will also facilitate the participation of representatives of the civil society and academia. In fact, the launching of the Pact in Santa Marta is only the first step: the participating countries will gradually shape during the next months the frequence and contents of the foreseen exchanges, as well as the modalities of consultation with civil society and social actors, and they will try to identify the possible sources of financing for the initiatives conducted under this framework.
In that regard, it is important to note that the Pact on Care is fully aligned with the social dimension of the Commission’s Global Gateway and its goal of fully adapting our societies to the ongoing green and digital transitions. The Pact is particularly compatible with instruments like the Team Europe Initiative (TEI) “inclusive societies”, focused on reducing inequalities and poverty by promoting social inclusion, gender equality, and access to services in regions like Latin America and the Caribbean, with the care economy being one of its priority areas.
All in all, the Bi-regional Pact on Care stands as a new milestone in EU-LAC bi-regional relations, expanding our cooperation into the most vital dimension of human life: the well-being of our peoples.
Background:
The Pact on Care is one of the key deliverables of the Fourth CELAC–EU Summit (Santa Marta, Colombia, 9–10 November 2025), following up on the commitments of the 2023 Brussels Declaration to increase bi-regional cooperation in the field of social justice. It aims to increase cooperation between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean in the fields of social affairs, gender equality, and inclusive economic development.
In recent years, due to the current demographic trends, the care economy has been slowly but steadily finding its way to the centre of multilateral agendas. By 2050, 25% of the population in LAC will be aged 60 or older, according to projections by ECLAC, amounting to approximately 193 million people in the region. In the case of the EU, official projections estimate that around 33% of the population will be 60 or older by that year, representing some 148 million people. This trend presents major challenges for public policy and social protection systems, as many more older adults will require specialised care and support to maintain their quality of life. Moreover, the burden of care continues to fall disproportionately on women, reinforcing gender and economic inequalities. Therefore, a strengthened cooperation in the field of the care economy could contribute to improving the well-being of dependent individuals, but also to address gender inequalities, foster the economic empowerment of women working in the care economy, and promote a more inclusive economic development in LAC and the European Union.
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