Care as Critical Infrastructure for Resilience
About the Session
When we talk about climate infrastructure, we tend to think about energy grids, flood defenses, buildings, transport, and technology. But when extreme heat, disasters, or displacement disrupt everyday life, another kind of infrastructure becomes visible: the people and systems that care for us.
Health workers, teachers, caregivers, public services, and community networks help people withstand and recover from climate shocks. Much of that work is underfunded or unpaid, and disproportionately carried by women. People with disabilities, older people, children, and others who rely on continuous care can face particularly serious consequences when those systems fail.
What would change if we treated care as a core climate investment?
This session will explore care as essential infrastructure for adaptation and a just transition. It will examine how governments, funders, and climate institutions can protect continuity of health, education, and care during climate shocks; how resilience strategies can better account for what happens beyond formal facilities; and how investment and measurement frameworks might recognize the value of care rather than continuing to treat it as an invisible resource.
The question is ultimately one of resilience: not only whether our physical systems can withstand climate change, but whether the systems that sustain people can too.
Discussion Group Leaders
Joy Zawadi is Executive Director at Akili Dada, advancing education, equity, and leadership opportunities for African girls and young women.
Saravanan Thangarajan is a global health researcher affiliated with Harvard’s Mittal Institute, a former Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an External Funding Advisor on Climate and Health for Wellcome, UK. His work focuses on resilient care systems and public-sector governance in the context of climate change
Brian Leslie is CEO and Partner at Camber Collective, advancing strategies that help foundations, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations strengthen impact and drive systems change.
What to Expect
A cross-sector conversation bringing together climate adaptation, health, education, disability, care economy, and financing perspectives. Participants will examine what climate resilience looks like when care is considered alongside physical infrastructure rather than after it.
The discussion will connect policy and investment decisions with the lived realities of caregivers and the people who depend on care, particularly during extreme heat, disasters, and displacement.
Who This Is For
This session is for climate and adaptation leaders, health and education practitioners, care economy advocates, disability organizations, governments, funders, investors, and policymakers interested in building more human-centered approaches to resilience.
What You Will Get Out of It
A framework for understanding care as climate and resilience infrastructure
Insights into how climate shocks disrupt health, education, and care systems
Perspectives on the particular impacts on women, caregivers, older people, and people with disabilities
Ideas for incorporating care into climate investment and measurement frameworks
Practical questions for governments and funders about accountability for continuity of care during climate stress