A woven basket at the heart of an imagined town connects to homes, workplaces and public buildings, symbolising childcare's place in community life.
Opportunities to work, learn and build a business become more usable when communities plan for the care that makes participation possible.
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
A training programme can offer an excellent curriculum and still be impossible for someone to attend.
Consider a hypothetical parent offered a place on a business course. The tuition is covered. The venue is reachable. The lessons could help turn an existing skill into an income. But the course begins before the local childcare service opens, and there is nobody available to cover the gap.
The invitation is real. So is the obstacle.
If organisers only count registrations and empty chairs, they may miss the reason that a promising opportunity went unused. Advertising the course more widely would not resolve this parent's difficulty. Neither would another message about confidence or ambition.
Economic development plans should examine these everyday conditions alongside the opportunities they create. Childcare deserves a place in discussions about skills, employment, enterprise and neighbourhood investment because it helps determine who can take part.
That argument also carries a responsibility. Children deserve safe, responsive care for their own sake. Care workers deserve respect, fair treatment and sustainable jobs. A plan that helps one adult work by placing an unreasonable burden on another has left important work unfinished.
Understand what the evidence measures
The International Labour Organization reported in October 2024 that an estimated 708 million women and 40 million men were outside the global labour force in 2023 because of unpaid care responsibilities. The estimates drew on data from 125 countries. These figures concern care broadly, including responsibilities beyond childcare. They do not mean that every person counted would enter paid employment if a childcare place became available. Read the ILO's findings and scope.
Even with that qualification, the difference is substantial. It gives leaders a reason to investigate how care responsibilities affect access to the opportunities they fund.
A separate World Bank report, launched in March 2021, estimated that more than 40 percent of children below primary-school age, nearly 350 million children, needed childcare but lacked access. This is a historical global estimate, not a current count of available places in any particular community. Read the World Bank's report announcement.
Local decisions still need local knowledge. A national shortage cannot tell a programme manager which opening hours would help prospective learners. A town-wide average cannot reveal whether a parent can afford a place, reach it or find a provider equipped to meet their child's needs.
The useful response is to move from the broad evidence to a specific question: what care arrangements would make this opportunity genuinely workable for the people it is meant to reach?
Ask about the whole day
Before choosing a solution, map the journey a participant would need to make.
In our hypothetical course, a two-hour session might require a longer period of care once travel and collection are included. Moving the class online may remove the journey, but it does not necessarily create uninterrupted time to study. Evening sessions may suit one household and clash with another household's responsibilities.
Ask prospective participants what prevents attendance, without requiring them to tell a personal story in public. A short, optional conversation or carefully designed survey can explore practical matters: the times they need, the cost they can manage, travel difficulties and whether they already have an arrangement they want to keep.
Invite fathers and other caregivers into that conversation. Recognising the unequal distribution of care should not reinforce the assumption that arranging childcare is exclusively women's work.
Include people who never applied. Current participants can explain what made attendance possible for them, but they cannot fully represent those who ruled it out before registration.
Keep personal information limited to what is necessary. At an early planning stage, an organisation may need to know that families require accessible provision, without collecting children's names or detailed health information. Any later information needed for actual care should follow appropriate privacy and safeguarding procedures.
Choose a service people can actually use
The International Finance Corporation's 2019 Guide for Employer-Supported Childcare offers a useful planning reference. It brings together needs assessment, regulatory requirements, quality, affordability, financial sustainability and monitoring. Its structure makes clear that providing childcare involves more than finding a room. The guide is practical guidance, rather than evidence that every employer-supported arrangement produces the same results. Explore the IFC guide and toolkit.
For a small organisation, a sensible first option may be to investigate suitable existing providers. Starting a new service carries responsibilities that should be assessed by people with the relevant expertise.
Compare possible arrangements against the actual need. A contribution towards fees will help only if an appropriate place is available and the remaining cost is manageable. A reserved place will be useful only if its hours fit the activity. A service beside the workplace may be less convenient for a family whose arrangements centre on home or another child's school.
Think about payment timing too. If support is offered through reimbursement, can the intended participant afford the initial payment? An advertised benefit may remain out of reach if it requires money the household does not have available.
Be clear before anyone commits. Explain eligibility, the support provided, any costs left to the family and what happens when circumstances change. Avoid making an uncertain service sound guaranteed.
Families should be able to ask questions, visit where appropriate and decline an arrangement that does not meet their needs. Trust requires room for judgment.
Treat quality as part of access
A place on a list is only one part of meaningful access. Parents also need confidence in the people and setting responsible for their children.
Any proposed provision should be checked against the applicable local requirements for licensing, staffing, safeguarding, premises and insurance. Requirements differ across jurisdictions and types of service. A charity, employer or training organisation should not assume that a short session or a good intention removes those obligations.
Before announcing childcare support, establish who is responsible for the service, how families raise a concern and how emergencies are handled. Work with qualified providers to identify what else must be in place. An informal promise that somebody will watch the children is an inadequate basis for a programme commitment.
Quality also deserves a place in the budget. Staff preparation, supervision, suitable materials, reliable administration and safe facilities are part of the service. Cutting these to produce an attractive headline price can weaken the very support families were promised.
Consider the child's experience as well as the parent's timetable. A useful arrangement should provide appropriate care and a setting where the child can feel secure. Economic participation is one purpose of the investment, not the only measure of its value.
Include the people who provide care
There is a second workforce in every childcare plan: the people doing the caring.
The International Labour Conference's June 2024 resolution on decent work and the care economy links quality care with decent working conditions. It calls for adequate remuneration and labour and social protection, alongside a fairer distribution of unpaid care. It also recognises the state's primary responsibility for care provision, funding, regulation and quality. This is an international policy framework, not a substitute for checking local legal duties. Read the ILO resolution.
For organisations commissioning support, the practical implication is to examine what the price requires of the provider. Is there a realistic staffing plan? Are preparation and administration recognised? Can the service continue without depending on workers repeatedly donating their time?
Invite providers into planning early enough to influence it. They may identify a demand pattern, a staffing constraint or an unsuitable timetable that a funding team would otherwise overlook.
Supporting parents and supporting care workers belong in the same conversation. Affordability should be pursued through a workable funding arrangement, rather than an expectation that the people providing care will absorb every shortfall.
Look at childcare as a sector worth building
A recent example from Nigeria shows what a broader approach can involve. In a feature published on October 29, 2026, the World Bank described work on national childcare occupational standards and reported that more than 4,500 aspiring caregivers and entrepreneurs were training towards those standards. The account also described support intended to help women-led care businesses prepare for financing and connect with employers. These are reported implementation activities, not proof that all trainees secured jobs or that children and families experienced measured improvements. Read the World Bank's Nigeria account.
The design is worth considering: professional skills, service quality, business viability and demand are being addressed together.
A community considering its own approach could begin by understanding the providers already operating there. What helps them deliver dependable care? What prevents them from adding suitable places? Would clearer information, staff development, premises support or a more reliable purchasing arrangement address the actual constraint?
The answer will vary. A solution should grow from that investigation, with families and care workers involved, rather than from an assumption that every community needs the same building or business model.
Fund continuity and check what changed
An opening-day budget is different from a plan for continuing care.
Before funding a pilot, clarify how long support lasts, who pays recurring costs and how families will be informed if it ends. Do not encourage someone to accept a job or training commitment on the strength of support whose limits have been left unstated.
Keep the first evaluation useful and proportionate. Record whether suitable places were available when needed, whether families could use the support and what difficulties remained. Ask providers about the operational burden as well as asking participants about convenience.
For a training programme, compare registrations, attendance and completion with care-related feedback. Avoid claiming that childcare alone caused an improvement merely because the numbers rose after it was introduced. Other changes may have contributed, and people who chose to use the service may differ from those who did not.
Listen when take-up is low. It could reflect unsuitable hours, remaining costs, limited awareness, a trusted existing arrangement or concerns that need attention. Low use is a reason to ask better questions before declaring that families did not need help.
Protect children's privacy when reporting results. Useful accountability does not require publishing identifiable family stories or photographs.
Put care beside the opportunity
Return to the parent offered a place on the business course. The most helpful response might be a compatible schedule, a suitable provider arrangement or financial support that can be used without an unaffordable advance payment. The right choice begins with understanding the obstacle.
Organisations do not have to solve every care challenge before they can offer something valuable. They should, however, examine the conditions on which their invitation depends.
When a community plans its next training programme, employment initiative or enterprise fund, childcare should be discussed while the design and budget are still open to change.
Who might be unable to use the opportunity, and what would make participation possible without compromising the quality of care?
That is a practical economic development question. It deserves a practical answer.
