Report

Social Protection and Urban Infrastructures of Care in Colombo

Strengthening care infrastructure in Sri Lanka

Highlights

UNICEF supported the Colombo Urban Lab to conduct research on how working mothers in Colombo navigate paid work and care, highlighting the need for stronger social protection systems.

Based on in‑depth research with working mothers in Colombo’s low- income households, this report examines how women navigate paid work, childcare, and unpaid care responsibilities amid Sri Lanka’s polycrisis, and why social protection must move beyond cash transfers to include well‑resourced care infrastructures of care.

The findings call for a transformative approach to social protection that recognizes care as essential, collective, and foundational to recovery.

Key insights;

Strengthening Sri Lanka’s urban infrastructures of care requires sustained investment, community-centred design, and a transformative social protection approach. Moreover, it requires viewing social protection as a constellation of interventions rather than a single targeted intervention. If implemented in parallel and incrementally over time these recommendations would reduce burdens on families, enable long term gains in livelihood, health, education and strengthen a fraught social contract. It would also enable women to improve their quality of life by reducing their time poverty, gain time for rest and leisure and be economically active through means of their own choosing.

Recommendations;