For unpaid caregivers, resident-centered innovation efforts made the difference in delivering critical social services. Digital Innovation Bogota Care Blocks

By Colin Murphy, Senior Writer

Digital Innovation of Bogotá’s Care Blocks

Bogotá, Colombia, has long been a model city for delivering innovative public service and equity-focused resident care. Among the city’s innovative ways of supporting residents is its System of Care Blocks (Sistema Distrital del Cuidado, or SIDICU), a network of care centers dispersed throughout the city. Through the Care Blocks, Bogotá’s millions of unpaid caregivers can access an array of social services ranging from water aerobics classes and resume-building workshops to legal counseling and child care.

The success of Care Blocks presented the city with new challenges: the need to streamline the system’s registration and data collection processes to provide support staff with more time for programming and service delivery.

To address these needs, the city’s Digital Innovation team (i-team), Laboratorio de Innovación Pública de Bogotá (iBO), supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University (BCPI), applied public innovation methodology, leveraging digital tools to improve efficiency and enhance user experience.

In a case study examining this digital innovation through the Care Blocks, BCPI researchers explore how the public innovation process empowered iBO to remove barriers and increase caregivers’ sense of social belonging and inclusion.

What are Care Blocks?

Bogotá’s System of Care Blocks is a global model for how cities can effectively address equity challenges and improve resident well-being. The city’s 8 million residents include 3.6 million unpaid caretakers, mostly women, with 1.2 million engaged in full-time care work. 

By integrating services from 13 city entities into convenient spaces located in densely populated and accessible city zones, Care Blocks make it accessible for caregivers to take care of their own well-being while their loved ones are looked after. This holistic approach promotes personal development, improved psychosocial health, economic mobility, and civic participation, benefitting both caregivers and communities as a whole. In recognition of this innovative approach, Bogotá won the 2022 Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge. 

For a deeper dive into Bogotá’s innovation journey to support access to services through Care Blocks and to explore the methodology that drove its success, download BCPI’s full case study “Public Innovation: Digital Transformation for the Care Blocks in Bogotá” today.