The event was held to discuss the issues of Care Economy in Kazakhstan – paid and unpaid child and elderly care work, search for effective solutions for the problems, and the establishment of partnerships between the public sector, academia, international, public organizations in this area as well.
The Forum was opened by the President of Narxoz University Miras Daulenov, who warmly welcomed the participants of the Forum and expressed gratitude for their participation.
The Forum programme was divided into two sessions. One of them was devoted to the results of the scholarship holders’ research of the Scholarship Program funded by the Soros Foundation Kazakhstan, and the second was devoted to the results of a study on the Care Economy project, implemented with the support of the Eurasia Foundation within the framework of the Social Innovations in Central Asia programme funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Forum was attended by representatives of state bodies, international, public and business organizations, and the academic community together with the international experts.
Opening statements were given to Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Chairman of the National Commission for Women, Family and Demographic Policy under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Irina Tarasenko, Advocacy Adviser of the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan Oleg Kozyrev, and Deputy of the Mazhilis of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Member of the Finance and Budget Committee of the Mazhilis, Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Irina Smirnova.
The Forum presentations were made by Co-Director of the Programme for Gender Analysis in Economics, Professor of the American University (Washington, OK, USA) Mika Merce, Professor of Denison University (Granville, Ohio, USA) Zarina Jurakulova, Director of the Center for Gender Economics Research Maigul Nugmanova, researcher Anastasia Lipovka, as well as the chairman of the NGO “Ardager” Bayan Akhmetzhanova.
During the event, the results of research conducted under the scholarship programme of the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan and the project funded by the Eurasia Foundation were presented. The conducted studies were aimed at analyzing the care system in Kazakhstan, studying households, identifying gaps, and missing data, developing recommendations, as well as micro-modeling to assess the economic benefits from the implementation of the proposed offerings.
The event has continued a series of forums have been supported by the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan since 2018 in the field of gender economy and women’s economic empowerment. The Forum of this year was organized also with the support of the Eurasia Foundation under the programme “Social Innovations in Central Asia” funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The event was moderated by the Director of the Gender Economics Research Center Maigul Nugmanova and gathered a large number of viewers in the cloud platform ZOOM.
The National Commission for Women Affairs, Family and Demographic Policy under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan acted as a partner of the event.