2026 Reports

Toward Care and Stewardship: Care, Well-being, and Mental Health as Ecosystem Services Provided by Bogotá's Critical Ecosystems

Benhallam, Jaad; Mahadevan, Pria

Bogotá's 2021 territorial master plan (Decree 555) established a network of 45 Care Blocks to be built by 2035, organized around the goal of addressing women's unpaid care burden through neighborhood-level Care Centers that offer professional development, wellness, and income-generation programs. Within this system, the city's Mujeres que reverdecen program trains marginalized women in gardening, urban agriculture, and green-space maintenance and provides conditional cash transfers while preserving urban ecosystems. The case proposes merging the Care Block system with Colombia's 2017 national payments for ecosystem services law (Law No. 870) to formally value care, well-being, and mental health as ecosystem services provided by critical urban ecosystems such as wetlands and páramo. Under this framework, PES financing would scale up Mujeres que reverdecen and similar initiatives through local councils paired with ecological consultants, prioritizing marginalized groups including at-risk youth and formerly incarcerated populations. Success would be measured through reach, validated ecosystem-services valuation, improved biodiversity, flood and heat protection, and mental health outcomes. The case also flags risks around ecosystem valuation under climate stress, corruption, short political cycles, and the displacement implications of designating ecosystems as care zones.

Keywords: payments for ecosystems services, care centers, gendered climate resilience