Coordinators’

Notebook
No. 29, 2007

An International Resource for Early Childhood

A global call to action for early childhood

InsideNepal: Rob Buchanan

4 Cornerstones: Strong
Foundations for Global
Development
International Early Childhood
Reports: Moving the Early
Childhood Agenda Forward
Case Studies
Network Notes

6

7
46
54

2

Introduction

Investing in early childhood:Contents

Meeting the challenge

Coordinators’ Notebook
No. 29, 2007

A declaration and global call to action from

Articles2007 Global Monitoring Report:
Strong Foundations
The Lancet: Early Childhood
Development Series

The Consultative Group on Early Childhood
Care and Development
722

WHO Commission on the Social
Determinants of Health Report -–ECD: A Powerful Equalizer

29

General Comment 7: ImplementingChild Rights in Early Childhood

35

UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities: Implications
for Early Childhood

38

Case Studies
Turkey - National Early Childhood
Education Advocacy Campaign

46

Brazil - Engaging the Private andPublic sectors in Brazil:
A Multisectoral Approach to ECCE	

50

Activities of the
CG Secretariat

54

In recent months, four international
publications have presented strong
scientific, social, economic, and moral
evidence to argue for increasing
investment in programmes intended
to improve the development and wellbeing of young children.
1. The prestigious health journal The
Lancet published a rigorous review of
research by an interdisciplinary groupof internationally renowned scientists
that:• Estimates that at least 200 million
children under the age of 5 worldwide
are unable to realise their potential.
• Identifies risk factors in development.

Regional Reports
Strengthening Regional Capacity
in the Caribbean

56

Latin America

57

Central Asia/Eastern Europe andthe Commonwealth of
Independent States

59

Association for the Developmentof Education in Africa, Working
Group on ECD	62

Advocacy in the Arab Region

64

Asia-Pacific Regional Network
for Early Childhood

66

International Early Childhood
Resources

69

Early Childhood Calendar

70

Credits

71• Provides evidence that programme
actions can significantly moderaterisks, promote protective factors, andpositively affect child developmental
outcomes, as well as reducing
mortality, disease, and undernutrition
during the early years.
2. An extensive review by thecommittee charged with monitoring
the global Education for All (EFA)
initiative—Strong Foundations, Global
Monitoring Report, 2007:• Presents strong arguments forinvesting in early childhood, including
the contribution of early development
to reaching other EFA goals and theMillennium Development Goals.
• Notes that early child development
and education are given relatively low
priority in the budgets of governments
and donor agencies.
• Summarises what programmes work,
as well as what needs to be done.

3. A review carried out for the World
Health Organisation titled “Early Child
Development: A Powerful Equaliser”:• Argues that early childhood
development (defined in termsof physical, social-emotional, andlanguage and cognitive development)
increases economic participation
throughout life, improves literacy andnumeracy, and reduces criminality
while also reducing stunting, heartdisease, and mental illness. In sodoing, ECD contributes to social andgender equity.
• Examines how elements of nurturing
environments affect brain development(and therefore the life course) throughthe quality of stimulation, relationships,
and language during the earliest years.
• Proposes ways that governments
and civil society actors, from local tointernational, can work in concert withfamilies to provide equitable access tostrong nurturant environments.
4. “A Guide to General Comment 7:
Implementing Child Rights in Early
Childhood” is based on the UN
Committee on the Rights of the Child’s(UNCRC) General Comment No. 7(GC7) which was drafted and adopted
in 2004 in response to the UNCRC’s
observation that young children were
almost entirely overlooked in States
parties’ reports on their progress
towards implementing the Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC). GC7:
• Broadly considers the realisation ofchild rights for, and on behalf of young
childen, beyond child mortality andbasic health and welfare.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

introduction• Embraces the notion of the young
child no longer powerless, voiceless, orinvisible but as a positive, participatingsocial actor, actively participating intheir development and in the social lifeof family and neighbourhood in the“here and now”, rather than solely as“becoming” for the future.
In addition, the new Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(CRPD) recently adopted by the UN
General Assembly, signed by 121
countries and ratified by 14 countries:• Makes a major shift away from the
medical to the social model of disability.
• Offers a renewed opportunity
for every country, community, andorganisation to “re-energise” and/or
reexamine existing legislation, policies,
budgets, and programmes.
• Promotes coordinated efforts toensure that all persons with disabilities
are guaranteed the same rights asothers.
These works, which are summarised inthis issue of the Coordinators’ Notebook
beginning on page 7, are buttressed by
the work of noted economists who hail
Early Childhood as the best investment
to improve the health and nutritionof young children, prepare them forelementary schooling, guarantee that

their rights are respected, and reduce
inequality, especially for the mostdisadvantaged children. As Nobel Prizewinning economist James Heckman
observed in the Wall Street Journal(January 10, 2006), “It is a rare public
policy initiative that promotes fairness
and social justice and at the same time
promotes productivity in the economy
and in society at large. Investing in
disadvantaged young children is such a
policy.”National governments and internationalorganisations are failing to meet thechallenge by providing the policies,
programmes, and resources that areneeded, despite an accumulationof work that shows the alarming
magnitude of the problem; offers
evidence about risks, protective factors,
and benefits; and suggests ways toimprove child development.
If this impressive outpouring of evidence
goes unheeded, intellectual, social,and economic potential will continue
to be lost, and the rights of children
will continue to be violated. The
Consultative Group on Early Childhood
Care and Development (CGECCD) calls
for immediate and urgent action in
all realms, including policy, advocacy,finance, aid, administration, andmonitoring.
Aga Khan Foundation/Jean-Luc Ray

Governments and civil societies need to intervene earlier and invest intensively in high quality Early
Childhood services and programmes that combine family support, health, nutrition, stimulation andlearning opportunities for young children.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Key advocacy messages:
4 Cornerstones to Securea Strong Foundation for
Young Children
The global attention to the critical needfor improved early childhood policies
resulting from the above publications
has presented the CGECCD with newopportunities for advocacy. Taking
advantage of the launch of the 2007
Global Monitoring Report in New Yorkin October 2006, the Consultative
Group convened a special session at
the CG’s 2006 annual consultation
to answer the question “Whatprogrammes and policies should
be in place to help assure the early
development of children?”Participants from all regions of theworld contributed to the developmentof the following 4 Cornerstones, or key
messages about early childhood (seepage 6):• Start at the Beginning• Get Ready for Success• Improve Primary School Quality• Include Early Childhood in Policies
Since we know that no magicage or programme exists, the 4Cornerstones are meant to reflect
the developmental spectrum of earlychildhood from prenatal through to theearly primary grades. Moreover, giventhat investments in early childhood
vary tremendously across regions, theCornerstones are meant to be adapted
to the particular needs and issues
emerging at country and community
levels.
In June 2007, the Cornerstones werediscussed and revised at a meeting ofConsultative Group partners and others
that was held at UNESCO in Paris.
International organisations and regional
networks were asked to share thesekey messages and provide ongoing
feedback so that the 4 Cornerstones
can remain a living document. The
regional reports in this issue of theCoordinators’ Notebook (see page 56)3

4

introduction

are framed around the 4 Cornerstones
and were presented at the CG’s Annual
Consultation in October 2007 in
Santiago, Chile.
Naturally, using these key messages
raises a number of questions,particularly when developing a specificpolicy agenda:• What do these statements mean forour community, country, or region?

• In what areas are we doing
well? Where do we need the mostimprovements?
• How can we use the 4 Cornerstones
to raise public awareness and gain
consensus around a policy agenda?
Where would we start? Which area
needs the most attention?
• Given our particular needs, whatmessages are missing? What other goals
are important?

Principles and Guidelines
In creating policy and when planning and implementing early childhood
programmes, several principles and guidelines should be kept in mind.
These include the following:• Development begins before birth. Therefore attention to children’sdevelopmental needs and risks should begin with pre- and post-natal
interventions.
• Development occurs continuously as a changing child interacts with achanging environment. Therefore, interventions can focus on changing
the child and/or on changing environments, including family, community,
service delivery, and broader social and economic environments.
• Development is multifaceted and integral. Therefore, it is essential
to integrate health, nutrition, and stimulation/learning in programme
elements.
• Children develop along many paths as risk conditions are reduced
and as they play, use all their senses, imitate, and interact socially withothers. Therefore, a range of programme options are available to facilitate
development.
• Children develop when adults provide a healthy environment, areemotionally and socially responsive and involved, talk to children, provide
appropriate and varied play materials, etc. Therefore, interventions should
include attention to adults as well as to children.
• While recognising the importance of universal approaches, it is importantfor equity reasons (and perhaps for financial reasons) to focus interventions
on those who are most vulnerable, attempting to reach the largest possible
number of children who live in conditions that put them at risk.
• It is important to build on what caregivers know and do well, including
traditional knowledge and practices. This may require flexibility inprogrammes that are sensitive to cultural differences, but it also requires
awareness of the general framework provided by the CRC.
• Programmes should be cost-effective and efficient.
• To be effective, early childhood interventions and programmes mustassure adequate quality.

• How can we use these messages tohelp build capacity in the field of Early
Childhood to take action on behalf ofyoung children?
• How can we use these messages
with policymakers? Media? Other new
champions for young children?
• What special events can be planned
throughout the year that can highlightpromising initiatives around eachmessage?
As the importance of the early years
gains recognition, we will come underincreasing pressure to define what
we want policymakers to do. Thesemessages are only a beginning. You canmake them come alive when discussing
them in the context of your communityand country. Please continue to let us
know how you use these Cornerstones.
What works? What needs further
revision?

Developing an advocacy
strategy for early childhood
Recognising the strengths of the
CGECCD as a global coalition thatfacilitates influential knowledgenetworking and advocacy processes
aimed at influencing decision makers
and development partners working in
Majority and Minority World contexts,
the CG proposes a framework for
advocacy, based on the 4 Cornerstones,
to move our work forward globallyand on a regional/national level. This
framework includes:• Raising public awareness about theimportance of Early Childhood.
• Developing consensus on specificpolicy goals and monitoring.
• Building capacity within the Early
Childhood community to advocate forchange.
• Reaching out to new champions who
have influence on policymakers.
• Targeting specific events throughout
the year.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

introduction

Cambodia: PLAN International/Adam Hinton

The challenge andcall to action
It is against this background that the
CGECCD offers the following challenge
and call to action.
1. We respectfully request that our own
participating organisations:• Maintain and strengthen theirattention to Early Childhood withfinancial resources, human resources,
programmes, and technical support.
• Integrate Early Childhood into ongoingor new programmes, including those
focused on:- Health- Nutrition- Education- Social protection- Conditional cash transfers- HIV/AIDS- Emergencies- Women´s work
- Community development
In particular, we call on UNICEF, with its
worldwide reach and prestige, to playthe important role that it can play to
improve early childhood.
We also call on the World Bank andothers to continue to incorporate earlychildhood into the Fast Track Initiative.
To do so would be consistent withthe 1990 Jomtien Declaration on
Education for All and the subsequent
recommendations in Dakar (2000)
which clearly state that “learning
begins at birth.” It would respondas well to the target set forth in the
EFA Framework for Action, which
recommends “expansion of earlychildhood care and education activities,
including family and community
interventions, especially for poor,
disadvantaged, and disabled children.”
2. We urge the World HealthOrganisation’s Commission on Social
Determinants of Health to incorporate

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Promotion and support of cost-effective early childhood programmes must be a priority for global
development.

Early Childhood into its programming.
This action would:• Be consistent with the WHOConstitution that says: “Health is astate of complete physical, mental andsocial well-being and is not merely theabsence of disease or infirmity.”• Recognise that the health, nutrition,and early stimulation and learningcomponents in an intervention
programme directed to young children
can operate synergistically to increase
the effectiveness of all components,
enhancing physical and psychosocial
well-being.
• Help to mobilise the technical andpolitical power and resources of thehealth community, without which ECCD
will improve slowly, at best, and without
respecting the holistic nature of childdevelopment.
We know what needs to be done tomove the Early Childhood agenda
forward. We need to rethink theconventional wisdom on educationinterventions. Learning begins at birth—
it does not wait until kindergarten
or primary school. We need tointervene earlier and invest intensively
in programmes that combine health,nutrition, and stimulation for young
children ages 0-8. Early Childhood
Care and Development is the first step
towards achieving Education for All andthe Millennium Development Goals.
The Fast Track Initiative cannot succeed
unless we focus on children’s earlyyears.
Promotion and support of cost-effective
early childhood programmes must be apriority for global development. Youngchildren are a wise investment—perhaps
the most productive investment asociety can make. By investing in young
children, we can help to guarantee amore equitable and prosperous future
for all.
Louise Zimanyi, Director
With input from CG Partners
Robert Myers and Joan Lombardi

56

4 cornerstones

4 cornerstones
To secure a strong
UNICEF/Peru/Walter Silvera

foundation foryoung children
Early childhood programmes provide a strong foundation
for good health, growth, and success in education and life.
Investing in young children saves money and pays off
in the long run.
cornerstone 1: Start at the beginning
Integrate early stimulation, child development, and parenting information
into prenatal, early health, nutrition, and education services by:

UNESCO/Gary Masters

n Providing access to parenting programmes that address holistic childdevelopment, particularly for the most vulnerable families;n Improving services for young children and families including earlystimulation, health, nutrition, and child care.

cornerstone 2: Get ready for success
Ensure access to at least two years of quality early childhood programmes
prior to formal school entry, beginning with the most vulnerable anddisadvantaged children.

cornerstone 3: Improve primary school quality
Aga Khan Foundation/Miranda Goodenough

Increase investments and improve the transition from home or preschool
to primary school and the quality of learning in grades 1-3 by:n Providing teachers with knowledge about early childhood, learning

environments and styles, and methods for teaching early literacy andnumeracy during pre/in-service teacher training;
n Giving children adequate learning materials; andn Ensuring smaller classes.

cornerstone 4: Include early childhood in policies
Address early childhood in all national policies and plans across sectors, including
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), Common Country Assessments (CCAs),UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), One UN Plan documents,
Education for All Plans (EFA), and Fast Track Initiative (FTI) Plans. Assure adequate
resources and multi sectoral coordination by ensuring that Early Childhood is
integral to development and macroeconomic planning and budgeting.

PLAN International

The Consultative Group on Early
Childhood Care and Developmentwww.ecdgroup.com

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

7Strong foundations:

Early childhood care and education
EFA Global Monitoring Report Team, withMichelle Neuman, special advisor on early childhood careand education for the 2007 edition
Learning begins well before a childwalks through the classroom door
for the first time. The paramountimportance of the child’s early years
is expressed in the first of the six
Education for All (EFA) goals adopted
by 164 countries in Dakar in 2000.
They are years of extreme vulnerability
and tremendous potential, during
which adequate protection, care, andstimulation are essential to provide thefoundations for the child’s well-being
and development.
The fifth edition of the EFA Global
Monitoring Report, launched in
October 2006, assesses progress
towards the first EFA goal, whichcalls on governments to expand
and improve “comprehensive earlychildhood care and education,
especially for the most vulnerable
and disadvantaged children”—those
who have the least access to suchopportunities and who stand to benefit
most from them.
Comprehensive programmes refer toa holistic approach that encompasses
both care and education for children
from birth to age 8. Such programmes
focus on a range of needs, from healthand nutrition to cognitive, social, andemotional development. Holistic earlychildhood programmes have a leadingrole to play in any strategy to attainbasic education for all and to reducepoverty, the overarching objective of
the Millennium Development Goals.
Programmes of good quality improvehealth and nutrition, combat HIV/AIDS,
and prepare children for a smoothtransition to primary school.
Commitment to early childhood has
increased in recent years. The 1989 UN

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Convention on the Rights of the Child,now endorsed by 192 nations, is aunique instrument to protect children’s
rights to survival, development, andprotection. Rapid economic andsocial change is increasing the needfor more early childhood policies
and programmes. Access to goodearly childhood programmes is notwidespread in developing countries. In
contrast, most children in developed
countries have access to at least

BOX 1
The 2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report was formally launched in New Yorkon October 26, 2006 in the presence of UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro
Matsuura and UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. Education
ministers from Chile, Ghana, and Jamaica, World Health Organisation
Assistant Director-General Joy Phumaphi, UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child member Lothar Krappmann, and eminent Indian educator Inderjit
Khurana each brought their own voice of support to the urgent cause ofearly childhood care and education. In a video message, President Michelle
Bachelet of Chile reiterated her government’s priority to early childhood
protection “because we understand that the first few years are crucial fordevelopment throughout a person’s life.”
Early childhood care and education was a central feature of the United
Nations Girls’ Initiative meeting and the High Level Group on Education
for All in Cairo (November 2006). The report was also presented anddiscussed at a press conference with Egypt’s Minister of Education. Since
then, the report has been presented in 37 countries in all regions, very
often involving ministers of education, government officials responsible
for ECCE, NGOs, and bilateral and multilateral representatives. In several
cases, policy workshops have provided opportunities to discuss the report’s
recommendations. In Dakar, representatives from 13 sub-Saharan Africancountries (including seven ministers) spent three days discussing ways tostrengthen ECCE policies. In the Mekong region, officials from several
countries called for better training and capacity building for policy makers
and knowledge sharing across the subregion.
Beyond the six UN languages, the report summary has been translated into
a number of others, including Bangla, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Portuguese,and Vietnamese.
The report is sparking policy discussion of ECCE. In several sub-SaharanAfrican countries, work is underway with key partners on developing
comprehensive Early Childhood policies. Donors, including Sweden and
Norway, have recognised that Early Childhood should feature more
prominently in their aid policies. Monitoring of EFA goal 1 is featured in
the report released December 5, 2007. Continued advocacy and capacity
building over the long term will be crucial for sustaining and increasing
commitment to quality ECCE.

8

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

two years of free preschool before
beginning primary school.
After setting out the rationale forstrengthening early childhood care andeducation (ECCE) programmes, thisarticle evaluates countries’ provisionof such services, especially for children
from disadvantaged or vulnerable
groups. Serving children from birth toage 8 in diverse settings with different
purposes, programmes are by nature
extremely varied, yet many featuresof good practice can be singled out.
Key aspects of national strategies for
expanding provision are then analysed.
The 2007 EFA Global Monitoring
Report’s findings are based on crossnational education statistics, household
surveys, consultations, literature
reviews, and specially commissioned
papers available on the UNESCO
website (www.efareport.unesco.org),
which also includes this summary as
well as the full report, statistical tables,
regional overviews, and over 100
country profiles on early childhood.
The report and summary are available
in multiple languages (see box 1).

The case for earlychildhood careand education
Very young children
have rights
Several human rights instruments
are specific to children. Although
not legally binding, the 1959 United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of
the Child affirms some of the mostbasic principles of children’s rights,
including the provision of health care,housing, social security, education,and protection from neglect, cruelty,
and exploitation. But the 1989
Convention on the Rights of theChild (CRC) ushered in a new era
for children’s rights. The CRC puts
the best interests of the child at theforefront and is attentive to the voice
and language of children. The mostwidely ratified human rights treaty inthe world, the CRC commits countries
to translate international standards
into domestic law and national
practice.

Cameroon: Emily Vargas-Baron

Quality Early Childhood programmes and services are an instrument to guarantee children’s rights,
open the way to all EFA goals, and contribute powerfully to reducing poverty, the overarching
objective of the Millennium Development Goals.

The CRC has few provisions specificto the youngest age group, but
its monitoring committee, the UN
Committee on the Rights of the Child,put early childhood on its agenda in2005, noting in a General Commentthat young children have a particularneed for nurturing, care, and guidance.
This working document, which defines
early childhood as the period frombirth to age 8, reminds parties to the
CRC of their obligation to develop
comprehensive policies covering health,care, and education for young children
as well as assistance to parents andcaregivers. Early childhood education,
it says, should be directly linked to
the rights of children to develop theirpersonalities, talents, and mental
and physical abilities from birth (seepage 35).
Recognition that children have rights of
their own establishes an international
standard that is not always accepted
by individual State parties. Provisions
empowering the state to intervene ona child’s behalf remain controversial.
Still, the CRC, with its near-universal
adoption, has a status that few otherinternational treaties can match, andit has contributed greatly to shaping
stronger policy agendas for childhood.

The impact of experiencesin the early years
Early childhood is a highly
sensitive period marked by rapidtransformations in physical, cognitive,social, and emotional development.
Undernutrition, deprivation of care,and poor treatment are particularly
damaging to young children, withrepercussions often felt into the adultyears. Inadequate stimulation andexposure to toxic substances in the firstyears of life can have serious long-term
effects. A child who receives extremely
poor care or who rarely hears language(as in some orphanages) is likely tosuffer developmental deficits that are
difficult to redress later.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

Good programmes can significantly
enhance young children’s well-being inthese formative years and complement
the care received at home.

Adequate health andnutrition required for learning
More than 10 million children underage 5 die every year, with over halfof that number dying from fivetransmittable diseases that can beprevented or treated. Worldwide,
about 86 of every 1,000 children bornin recent years will not reach age 5.
Infant mortality rates are highest in
Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West
Asia (over 100 per 1,000 live births).
Poor nutrition has a negative
impact on school participation andachievement. Stunted children (those
short for their age) are less likely toenrol in school and more likely toenrol later and to drop out. A severeor chronic lack of essential nutrientsin childhood impairs language, motor,
and socioemotional development.
Extending the provision of safe
drinking water and proper sanitation
globally would reduce infant andchild mortality dramatically. Accessto treatment for HIV/AIDS is crucial
for the survival and developmentof young children. The limited
coverage of organised early childhood
programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa
makes it all the more difficult to
detect and treat health problems
linked to poor nutrition. In Latin
America and the Caribbean, earlychildhood programmes have reduced
the prevalence of malnutrition andstunting and contributed to children’swell-being and school readiness.
Measures designed to reduce mortality
and morbidity are a first step towards
establishing comprehensive care andeducation programmes for young
children. Four types of intervention
have been found to have a large
impact on cognitive outcomes
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

in malnourished children: ironsupplements, extra food, deworming,and psychosocial stimulation. A more
holistic view of child development
is gaining ground, informed by thelinks between health and nutrition,on the one hand, and educationon the other. In East Delhi, India, a
programme providing deworming andiron supplements resulted in higher
preschool attendance. Interventions
combining nutrition and education
are more likely to succeed than those
focusing on nutrition alone. Studies in
Guatemala and Vietnam found thatnutrition packages had a longer-lasting
impact when children also received
sufficient cognitive stimulation.
Education should be considered an
integral dimension of programmes
designed to address young children’s
health and nutrition problems.

Improving access to andprogress in primary school
ECCE programmes enhance children’s
physical well-being, cognitive andlanguage skills, and social andemotional development. The impact
of such programmes on participationin primary education and beyond
is well documented. Preschool
experience in the United Kingdom,
for example, was shown to result in
improved intellectual development,
independence, concentration, andsociability during the first three years
of primary school.
Studies of programmes in several
developing countries point to links
between participation in earlychildhood programmes, primary school
enrolment, and better results over at
least three to four years, particularly
for disadvantaged children. In a poor
district of Nepal, 95% of children
who attended an early childhood
programme went on to primary school,as opposed to 75% who did not.
Participants had significantly higher
marks on exams at the end of grade 1.

The Turkish Early Enrichment Project,which provided preschool experience
to children and support to mothers in
low-income areas of Istanbul, resulted
in 86% of the children still being inschool after seven years, compared to
67% for non-participants. Controllingfor GDP, the higher an Africancountry’s pre-primary enrolment
ratio, the higher its primary school
completion rate and the lower its
primary repetition rate.

The economic case
Given their positive impact on health,nutrition, and education outcomes,
early childhood programmes represent
a good investment in human capital.
Although research is limited, especiallyin developing countries, returns toinvesting in ECCE programmes are
positive, and indeed generally higher
than those to investing in othereducation interventions. Returns to
ECCE investments are reaped over alonger period than those targeting
older children, youth, or adults.
Furthermore, the skills acquired in
ECCE programmes are a foundation
for all further learning.
The most widely cited evidence on
early childhood programmes comesfrom the longitudinal High/Scope
Perry Preschool Program in the UnitedStates. Between 1962 and 1967, theprogramme targeted low-income
African-American children assessed
to be at high risk of school failure.
Participants and a control group weretracked annually from ages 3 to 11
and again several times until age 40.
Participation led to increased IQ at age
5, higher rates of graduation from highschool, and higher earnings at age 40.
Detailed cost-benefit analysis suggeststhat the programme yielded a 17:1
benefit/cost ratio.
Evidence from developing countries
is slowly accumulating. A preschool
health programme in Delhi increased
average school participation by 7.7

910 Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

percentage points for girls and 3.2
points for boys. The same programme
would increase the net present valueof lifetime wages by US$29 per childwhile costing only US$1.70. In Bolivia, ahome-based programme had benefit/
cost ratios between 2.4:1 and 3.1:1,
with higher ratios for at-risk children;
analyses in Colombia and Egypt findsimilar ratios. In all cases, the impact of
ECCE is stronger for children from poorfamilies than for more advantaged
children; participation results in lower
dropout and repetition rates in primaryschool.

Reducing social inequality
Advocates of programmes for young
children have long argued thatthey can reduce social inequality.
Recent research confirms that ECCE
programmes can compensate fordisadvantage, regardless of underlying
factors such as poverty, gender,
ethnicity, caste, or religion. Head
Start, a public project launched in the
United States in 1964 as part of the“War on Poverty,” was driven by theassumption that targeted interventions
could compensate for less favourable
family and community backgrounds.
The High/Scope Perry programme
helped level the playing field for
disadvantaged children. Research insuch diverse places as Cape Verde,
Egypt, Guinea, Jamaica, and Nepal
consistently finds that the mostdisadvantaged children are the ones
who draw the greatest benefit from
ECCE programmes.
Early childhood programmes can also
reduce gender inequality. Girls who
participate in such programmes are
more likely to begin school at the rightage and to complete the primary cycle.
ECCE participation also tends to havea larger impact on girls’ health than on
boys’.
The provision of quality early childhoodcare and support is essential for all
children, but particularly important

for the poor and vulnerable, tocompensate for disadvantage. As
the Nobel Laureate James Heckman
observes (Wall Street Journal, January
10, 2006), “It is a rare public policy
initiative that promotes fairness andsocial justice and at the same time
promotes productivity in the economy
and in society at large. Investing in
disadvantaged young children is sucha policy.”

Early childhoodcare and education:
The scaleof provision
The rise of support toworking mothers andorganised child care
Formal arrangements to care for young
children date back to the eighteenth
century. In Europe, a great variety ofearly childhood institutions took root in
the nineteenth century, some foundedby educators well known today, suchas Fröbel and Montessori. Some
addressed the needs of poor working
mothers or neglected children, whileothers provided an enriched preschool
education for middle-class children.
After the Second World War, thegrowing numbers of women in thelabour force began to demand decentquality and affordable care for their
young children. By the end of thetwentieth century, the state nurseryschool predominated throughout
Europe.
The formalisation of early childhood
provision in developing countries ismore recent and shows considerable
regional variation. The traditionalroles of women in agriculture and theinformal sector meant greater relianceon kin and informal community
arrangements for children’s careand upbringing. The massive entry
of women into the labour market indeveloping countries since the 1950s,
however, has changed the situation.
In 2005 women’s labour force
participation rates were over 55% in
East Asia, South-East Asia, and SubSaharan Africa and about 50% in Latin
America and the Caribbean. They wereconsiderably lower in South Asia (35%)
and the Arab States (28%), but still up
significantly over previous decades. In
general, the greater women’s relative
control over household earnings andspending, the more likely it is thatchildren’s welfare will be considereda priority in household decisions andthat boys and girls will benefit equallyfrom early childhood provision.
In more developed countries,
women’s work in the industrial andservice sector is strongly associatedwith higher enrolment in preschool
programmes. The link between
employment patterns and pre-primaryeducation is weak in developing
countries. But migration, urbanisation,and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are
weakening ties between extended andnuclear families and creating child careneeds that current arrangements do
not meet. The number of single-parent
households, especially those headed by
women and particularly in European
Union countries and Latin America,
also has implications for child care.
Public policies supporting infant caredate back to the late nineteenth
century. By the 1970s, almost
all Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries offered paid maternity
leave, and some (particularly among
the Nordic countries) have parental
leave, allowing the mother or father
or, in rare cases, both to take time offwork. About 100 developing countries
report having established some formof maternity leave, albeit frequently
limited to workers in certain sectors
and with often lax enforcement.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

Monitoring progress towards
EFA goal 1
Some 738 million children—11% of
the total world population—are in
the 0 to 5 age group. Their number is
expected to reach 776 million by 2020,
driven by growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
and the Arab States.
The wide diversity of provision,organisation, and funding of ECCE
programmes presents formidable
challenges for monitoring. Moreover,the early childhood goal contains noquantitative target by which to gauge
progress. Data problems include a lackof systematic data on programmes forchildren under 3; limited informationon the extent to which programmes
address health, physical development,
learning, and support to parents; andpre-primary enrolment data reported
by education ministries that may
undercount children’s participationin programmes funded by otherministries, private groups, or local
communities. Enrolment patterns
can also vary significantly within
the 3 to 5 or 3 to 6 age group thatmost countries use when calculating
participation in early childhood
programmes.
The education of under-3s indeveloping countries is widely regarded
as the responsibility of parents, private
associations, or non-government
agencies. One or more programmes
for these very young children can be
identified in just over half the world’s
countries. They typically provide parttime organised custodial care foryoung children and, in some cases,
health services and educational
activities. Much more information isneeded about programmes for children
under 3 if comprehensive monitoringof ECCE is to take place.

Pre-primary education:
sharp enrolment increases
The International Standard
Classification of Education defines
pre-primary education (ISCED level0) as including all programmes that,in addition to providing children
with care, offer a structured andpurposeful set of learning activities,
either in a formal institution or in a
non-formal setting. Governments playa more active role in the provision ofprogrammes for children aged 3 orolder, and a relatively limited one forthe under-3 group. Age 3 is the official
starting age of pre-primary educationin 70% of countries.
The number of children enrolled in
pre-primary education worldwide has
tripled in the past three decades, risingfrom 44 million in the mid-1970s
to about 124 million by 2004. Preprimary gross enrolment ratios (GERs)
express total enrolment, regardless offigure 1

Regional trends in pre-primary gross enrolment ratios

Note: Data for East Asia and the Pacific are for developing countries only; Australia, Japan, and New Zealand are included
under developed and transition countries. The dotted line signifies a break in the data series due to a new classification.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

11

12 Strong foundations: Early childhood care and educationage, as a percentage of the populationof the official age group in eachcountry (typically 3 to 5). Between
1975 and 2004, the global GER morethan doubled, from about 17% to37%. Among developed and transition
countries, the ratio was about 40%
in 1970, increasing to 73% in 2004.
Among developing countries, thecoverage of pre-primary education
was and remains considerably lower.
In 1975, on average, less than 1 childin 10 was enrolled in pre-primary
institutions; by 2004, coverage had
increased to about 1 child in 3 (32%).
Over the period 1991-2004, coveragein pre-primary education increased infour fifths of the eighty-one countries
with comparable data for both years.
There are marked regional differencesin trends dating back to the 1970s.
In Latin America and the Caribbean,
which has witnessed the strongest
increase, three quarters of countries
now have pre-primary GERs above
75%, while in Sub-Saharan Africa,
despite a steady increase since the1970s, half the countries have ratios
lower than 10%. In the Arab States,
coverage has been fairly stagnant
since the 1980s. GERs have expanded
noticeably across Asia. In South andWest Asia most countries now enrol
between one third and one half of
their children in pre-primary education(see figure 1).

to 2004 for developed countries andthe same amount for developing
countries, while the increase was more
pronounced for the transition countries(eighteen percentage points). The
number of young children enrolled
in pre-primary education declined in
East Asia by almost 10%, mainly due
to trends in China following a periodof impressive expansion (enrolment
increased from 6.2 million in 1976 to
24 million in 1999 before dropping to
the 2004 level of 20 million as the 0
to 5 population decreased). Forty-eightpercent of the world’s pre-primaryenrolments are girls, a proportion
unchanged since 1999.
Considerable disparities exist between
countries in the same region; thesedifferences are generally related tonational development levels (e.g., in
Sub-Saharan Africa, with a regional
average of only 10%, Mauritius andSeychelles have GERs close to 100%;in Asia, the GER is below 10% in
Cambodia, while the Republic ofKorea, Malaysia, and Thailand registernearly universal enrolment). In Central
Asia, despite some recovery from thedecline of the 1990s, no country enrols
more than half its children. In North
America and Western Europe, virtually
all countries have GERs above 60%; inhalf of them the ratio is 100%.
Most of the fifty-two countries with
GERs of less than 30% are in SubSaharan Africa and the Arab States. In
general, their recent progress has beenslow (typically less than five percentage
points). Of the eighty-six countries
with GERs above 30% in 2004, theratio had increased since 1999 in sixtysix of them. Rapid progress (more thanten percentage points) was reported
in Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico,and Jamaica; most of the transition
countries also recovered losses.

The average GER rose moderately (byfour percentage points) from 1999

Jean Luc Ray

Since 1999, pre-primary enrolment
increases have been particularly
pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa(where the number enrolled roseby 43.5%), the Caribbean (43.4%)
and South and West Asia (40.5%).
Although the number of children
enrolled in pre-primary education rose
sharply in Sub-Saharan Africa, theaverage GER for the region did not,due to continuing high population
growth.
The lack of available data in many countries affected by recent or current armed conflict suggeststhat the EFA situation is unlikely to be improving.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

Although goal 1 has no quantitative
target, many countries have set
their own—at least for children over
3—in national plans for 2010 or2015. Countries with relatively highpre-primary GERs have tended to
set universal preschool enrolment
by 2015 as the objective. Chile andMexico, with current GERs above
50%, have done so, for instance, as
have Paraguay, Kazakhstan, and India,
all with GERs below 40%. Given past
growth rates, meeting these nationaltargets may not be feasible without
significant additional efforts.
Most regions are moving towards
gender parity in pre-primaryeducation—the overall ratio between
the female and male GERs is 0.97.
Considerable progress has occurred inregions with high disparities, notably
the Arab States, where the gender
parity index (GPI) was 0.87 in 2004
compared to 0.76 in 1999. South andWest Asia also moved towards parity
between 1999 and 2004. Countries in
the Caribbean and several Pacific islandstates show a slight disparity in favourof girls. Many of these countries also
have gender disparities favouring girls
at the primary and secondary levels.
The countries with the lowest GPIs are
Afghanistan, Morocco, Pakistan, andYemen.

Household surveys highlight groups
with limited access to ecce
Household surveys, based on directinterviews, provide a more detailed
picture of early childhood provision
than the administrative data onpreschool reported so far. In mostof the fifty-three countries for whichsurvey data are available, the gender
gap is relatively small (less than 10%).
By contrast, urban-rural differences
are much larger and, except inJamaica, always to rural children’s
disadvantage. In many countries,
the proportion of rural children withaccess to early childhood provision
is ten to thirty percentage points
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

lower than that of urban children.
Barring a few exceptions, children
in richer households have higher
ECCE attendance rates than thosefrom poorer families. A mother withsecondary education substantially
increases the likelihood of children
attending ECCE programmes. Children
without birth certificates and, to alesser extent, vaccination records
have lower attendance in ECCE
programmes. Those suffering fromstunting have lower ECCE participation
rates than other children.

The ECCE workforce
Entry qualifications for pre-primaryteachers are highly variable indeveloping countries and range fromlower secondary to tertiary level
qualifications. In four out of twentythree developing countries for which
relevant data are available, pre-primaryteachers need only a lower-secondary
qualification. In eight countries,
completion of regular upper-secondary
studies is required. In the remaining
eleven countries, a post-secondaryor tertiary qualification is required.
Formal entry requirements are often
not respected. Pre-primary school
teachers receive little training—almost
always less than their primary school
counterparts. Some countries,
including Lesotho and Uganda, haverecently developed training courses forpre-primary teachers.
In most industrialised countries, entry
qualifications usually require tertiary
education and specific training. The
care and education components ofearly childhood provision are generally
separate, leading to distinct staffing
policies. Highly trained educators or
qualified pedagogues work alongside
untrained child care workers, many ofthem part-time or volunteers.
Almost all pre-primary school teachers
are women, reflecting perceptions of
ECCE as an extension of the traditional
mothering role. In OECD countries,

more than 20% of pre-primaryteachers are above the age of 50. In
low- and middle-income countries,
the recent expansion of pre-primaryeducation translates into a higher
proportion of younger teachers than at
the primary level.
In most countries with data available(mainly middle-income), pre-primaryand primary teachers’ salaries are
generally the same. Pay disparities exist
between pre-primary teachers andother staff, and between those in theformal system and those working inless formal programmes, often withthe youngest children. Some countries,
the United Kingdom among them,
are moving to close the gap between
education and care workers byintroducing a national minimum wagein ECCE.
Many countries are developing,revising, or improving the training
programmes through which preprimary teachers become qualified.
Some countries are expanding theavailability of ECCE programme
opportunities at general universities
and vocational institutions (e.g., New
Zealand). Several universities in Egypt
have developed pre- and in-service
training programmes for kindergarten
teachers. Other countries have recently
developed their first programmes forpreschool teachers. Many are also
strengthening in-service training andenhancing it with research-based
evidence concerning child growth anddevelopment. Each Moroccan province
has a preschool resource centre
providing continuing education andpedagogical methods to teachers. The
SERVOL Training Centre in Trinidad
and Tobago organises in-service
training for other Caribbean islands.
Many European countries (e.g.,
Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Norway)
are trying to reconcile primary and preprimary qualifications so that teachers
attain the same basic qualificationlevels.

13

14 Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

Designing quality
programmes foryoung children
Designing programmes for young
children is especially complex.
Programmes need to integrate
educational activities with health,nutrition, and social services to assure
holistic development. Pedagogy must
be adapted to the needs of young
children from diverse backgrounds.
And, in the child’s earliest years,
it is helpful to provide support toparents, too. No single model of
early childhood provision can beapplied uniformly in all countries.
For a start, parenting practices differ
around the world. It is importantfor early childhood programmes torecognise the differences and ensurethat programmes are relevant to thecountry context and the groups forwhich they are designed.

Parenting programmes:
starting in the home
Parents (or other custodial caregivers)
are the child’s first educators, andfor the youngest age group thehome is the prime area of care.
The home environment has a major
impact on cognitive development
and socioemotional well-being.
The availability of reading materials
and drawing and art supplies is apredictor of cognitive outcomes suchas attention, memory, and planning.
The best way to support homeenvironments is to work directly withparents.
Parenting programmes are diverseand hence difficult to monitor. Often
they are offered through the healthsector. But as ministries of education
increasingly take on responsibility
for education from birth onwards,
they are also exploring how best to
work with parents. Home visiting
programmes provide one-on-one
support for individual parents. The

model is expensive, and so bestused as a targeted intervention withat-risk families. Target groups for theCommunity Mothers Programme in
Dublin, for instance, include single
and/or teenage parents, refugees,
asylum-seekers, and people living
in disadvantaged areas. Community
Mothers—volunteers trained bynurses—visit parents once a monthand use a specially designed childdevelopment programme focusing
on health care, nutrition, and overall
development. Evaluations show
significant beneficial effects for bothmothers and children in terms of selfesteem, interaction, and support forthe child’s learning experiences.
Local communities also play a keyrole in supporting young children
and their families through homeor community-based child care. In
Colombia, for example, the Hogares
Comunitarios programme has becomea major welfare initiative, catering
for more than a million children frombirth to age 6. Initially designed to
improve nutrition in poor households,
it now includes child care as well.
Eligible households elect a ‘community
mother’ who opens her home to up
to fifteen children. The programmereaches the poorest children andboosts their physical growth byproviding daily meals. Children aged
13 to 17 who once participated in the
programme were more likely to be inschool and to have advanced to thenext grade than those who did not.

Pedagogy and curriculum:
setting the groundwork forlearning
The most common form of ECCE,
particularly for the 3 to 6 age group,
is centre-based provision. It is crucial
to make this experience a positive
one by ensuring that practices are
suited to the child’s age and culturalenvironment. Learning is more
effective in the mother tongue. At

the same time, this first exposure toorganised learning is an opportunity
to challenge traditional gender roles.
Finally, programmes should be inclusive
and take into account circumstancessuch as armed conflict.
Research in both developed anddeveloping countries highlights aconsistently positive relationshipbetween measures of various aspectsof quality and virtually every facet of achild’s development. While structuralfeatures, such as class size and staffchild ratios, are important elements ofa good early childhood environment,
research shows that interactions
between the staff and the child are themost important predictors of children’s
enhanced well-being.
The IEA Pre-primary Project lookedat how experience at age 4 affectedchildren’s development at age 7 inseventeen countries. It found, forexample, that when 4-year-olds had
participated in programmes where
unstructured activities, driven by thechild’s interests, predominated, they
achieved higher language scores atage 7 than counterparts who had
experienced more activities aimed atdeveloping skills such as literacy andnumeracy. The frequency of childinteraction, adult participation inchildren’s activities, and the teacher’s
education level were all positively
related to later language performanceas well.

Gender: challenging stereotypes
Perceptions of what is masculine
and what is feminine take hold in
early childhood. Curricula for thisage group often are not genderneutral. Books tend to draw marked
distinctions between male and female
characters. When playing games,
children are often encouraged tofollow stereotypes. Teachers tend torespond differently to boys and girls
in listening, asking questions, andinteracting.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

Early childhood programmes can beadapted to challenge gender roles.
Pedagogy as well as teaching andplay materials can promote egalitarianvalues. Sweden formed a delegation to
encourage debate on ways to promote
gender equality in preschools andchannel funding to preschool staff
wishing to develop alternative methods
along these lines. Training shouldcompel teachers to reflect on theirown practice. Encouraging more men
to work in early childhood programmes
can also help to challenge assumptionsof the woman as sole caregiver andencourage fathers to be more involvedin their child’s upbringing.

Supporting early language
development
Research consistently shows theimportance of early literacy experiences(e.g., reading books to children,
the number of books in the home)
for language development, reading
outcomes, and school success. In the
United Kingdom, the most important
influence on children’s success inlearning to read in primary school was
exposure to written materials during
the preschool years. Poverty also affects
language development. In the UnitedStates, the number of words heard
by age 4 differed enormously among
welfare, working-class, and professionalfamilies. At age 3, the professional’schild had a larger vocabulary thanthe parent of the welfare child. This
research underlines the importanceof exposing children, especially fromlower socioeconomic backgrounds, tolanguage-rich settings at an early age.
Although many children grow up in
multilingual societies, learning in theofficial language is generally the norm
in preschools and primary schools
around the world. Yet children who
learn in their mother tongue for six toeight years from preschool through theearly primary grades perform better
than those who start in the official
language.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Bilingual models remain few andfar between, however. Some claim
they are expensive and difficult toimplement or that they risk fosteringsocial and political divisions. But
countries including Cambodia,
Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New
Guinea, and Vietnam have developed
effective bilingual early childhood
programmes that have influenced
practices in the first years of primaryeducation. In Papua New Guinea,
the world’s most linguistically diverse
nation, parents worked with local
government and NGOs in the 1970s tocreate two-year vernacular-languagepreschools. In 1995, the government
encouraged the formal school system
to use vernacular languages in the first
three years of primary school, followed
by gradual transition to English. Todayover 350 languages are used in the
country’s education system.
Bilingual storytelling and activities canalso help children develop literacy
skills that can be transferred fromone language to another. Recruiting
multilingual staff is another promisingstrategy. Several European countries
employ bilingual assistants to workin preschool settings with new
immigrant students and their parents.
Parents from language minority
backgrounds need to be informed
about opportunities for their children
to attend early childhood programmes
and the value of preserving their homelanguage and culture.

Inclusive approaches: special needs
and emergency situations
As many as 85% of all children
with special needs live in developing
countries, where the incidence ofsensory problems such as childhood
blindness and hearing impairment isdisproportionately high. Adequate
screening for sensory and non-sensory
disabilities can lead to effective
interventions for young children
with special needs. Early childhood
programmes can also foster transition

for certain children into mainstream
schools. Chile has an inclusive
approach to early childhood educationin which training courses for nurseryschool staff, monthly bulletins forteachers, and funds for wheelchairs
and hearing aids have improved carefor young children with special needs
in mainstream centres. Most OECD
countries also encourage inclusive
approaches in line with international
commitments to children’s rights.

Facilitating transition to primaryschoolGood quality ECCE is not just an end
in itself. It is also, as the EFA goals
recognise, an important foundation for
subsequent education. Thus it is vitalnot only for children to be made readyfor primary school, in terms of physical,
social, and cognitive development, butalso for primary schools themselvesto provide decent learning conditions.
One route is to integrate ECCE moreclosely with primary education.
Such integration is motivated by adesire to overcome fragmentation andfacilitate transition for children. This
trend is most evident in Europe, but
is observed in a few other countries
including Brazil, Kazakhstan, South
Africa, and Vietnam. The approach
involves forging stronger links among
the health, care, and education
components of ECCE, and often
making one administrative structure,
usually the ministry of education,
responsible for ECCE and primaryeducation. While such efforts canincrease continuity for children, theyentail a risk of excessive focus onacademic goals in preschool insteadof a broader, holistic approach thatincorporates welfare, health, and care.
A second goal of integrating ECCE
and primary schooling is to assure
curricular continuity. Some countries
have an integrated preschool andprimary curriculum. In the Step by Step
curriculum followed in thirty countries
of Central and Eastern Europe, no15

16 Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

grades exist for the first four years ofprimary education so that children can
progress at their own pace. Jamaica’s
Pre-Primary to Primary Transitions
follows the same principle. In India’s
Bodh Shiksha Samiti and Colombia’sEscuela Nueva, multigrade classrooms
use an active curriculum and lessonplans that respond to students’
differing abilities and interests.
Continuity can also be fosteredby getting parents more engaged.
In Pakistan, parents in poor ruralcommunities help teach local songs
and stories. In France, community
mediators work with parents in lowincome neighbourhoods to improve
dialogue with teachers. Where children
lack access to preschool, transition
can be eased through, for example,
visits to primary schools to familiarisechildren with their future environment,
or structured and free play activities
for small groups of children in themonths leading up to school entry.
In Kazahkstan, pre-primary education
classes prepare 5- or 6-year-olds who
have never attended preschool forformal schooling through a 32-weekcourse. In Guatemala, the Centros deAprendizaje Comunitario en Educación
Preescolar prepare children fromvarious ethnic backgrounds without
access to preschool for entry to
primary school.

The lack of a national Early
Childhood policy represents atruly missed opportunity to createa national vision and strategies,
expand investments, and improve
intersectoral coordination for all
young children, but especiallythose most vulnerable anddisadvantaged.

Fostering strong
ecce policies
If children are to benefit from quality
care and learning opportunities intheir early years, governments, inpartnership with other stakeholders,must develop and implement soundpolicies for them. Three key areas
deserve attention: governance; quality
and financing—including targeting thedisadvantaged; and partnerships withinternational aid agencies.
The governments of developing
countries have generally given limited
policy attention to early childhood,among the EFA goals, relative to thatgiven to primary education and gender
parity. A review of policy documents
for forty-five countries reveals that
few adopt a holistic approachencompassing education, health, andnutrition for children 8 and under.
For disadvantaged, vulnerable, anddisabled children, the lack of a national
ECCE policy represents a truly missed
opportunity. Where ECCE does get
attention, it is usually for age 3 andup, so that opportunities for younger
children are also missed.
For governments to develop strong
policies for young children, thepolitical, social, and economic
conditions need to be supportive.
Several developments over the past
decade indicate movement in thisdirection:• The growing body of research on
the benefits of ECCE, especially for the
disadvantaged and as a crucial firststage of the education system, canhelp build the political will to support
ECCE.
• The rising labour force participationof mothers with young children,
coupled with the decline of traditionalfamily child care, has made somegovernments more receptive toexpanding and improving ECCE.

• Though the evidence is limited,
attention to ECCE within EFA plans,
education and health sector plans,
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSPs), and legislation appears to beon the rise.
• Aid agencies, UN organisations,foundations, and international NGOs
are supporting capacity building andfunding ECCE projects that could betaken to scale. Strong international
ECCE networks are informing national
policy and planning efforts andencouraging information sharing.
Despite these positive factors, country
experiences suggest that several
barriers need to be addressed:• Ambivalence about the role ofgovernment in the lives of families—
public policy tends to be limited forchildren under 3, and the boundaries
between the public and private spheres
are often unclear.
• Insufficient public awareness ofthe benefits of ECCE, especially as acontribution to EFA and Millennium
Development Goals.
• Limited financial and humanresources—most governments allocate
the bulk of education funding tocompulsory schooling and mostbilateral donors focus heavily on
tertiary education.
• Competing policy priorities—in
low-income countries, policy choices
have immediate consequences forchild survival. Within education,
governments face tough choices
whether, for example, to expand
education systems from primary
down to ECCE or up towards lower
secondary education.

How does ECCE gain politicalclout?
Despite these barriers, governments
are increasingly beginning to elaborate
explicit and comprehensive national
ECCE policies covering health,
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

nutrition, education, water, hygiene,
sanitation, and legal protection foryoung children. Although policy
strategies must be tailored to relevant
cultural, political, and economic
contexts, effective strategies share
several key elements:• High-level political endorsement can
get ECCE on the agenda. President
Wade of Senegal made early childhooda priority from the 1980s, long before
his first election in 2000. As president
he introduced les cases des tous
petits—flexible community-based
centres for children from birth to age
6 that integrate health, education, andnutrition as an alternative to the more
expensive preschools. Chile has a long
tradition of ECCE that has benefitedrecently from political support at thehighest level. Since her election in
2006, President Michelle Bachelet
has made a series of commitments tostrengthen ECCE.
• Broad stakeholder involvement helps
promote ownership and consensus(e.g., in Ghana). Engaging parents canencourage local community support
for ECCE programmes.
• Government partnerships withinternational organisations, donor
agencies, and NGOs can generatesignificant seed money and technicalassistance for projects that can then be
scaled up.
• Aligning ECCE policies with othernational and sectoral development
policies is a strategic way to leverage
resources and promote ECCE
integration. Ghana, Uganda, andZambia are integrating early childhood
development into their PRSPs.
• Detailed action plans facilitate ECCE
policy implementation by describing
the division of responsibilities andallocation of resources and by setting
a time frame. Jordan’s National Plan of
Action for Children (2004-13) focuses
on five components: securing a healthy
life; developing and strengthening
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

capabilities of children; protecting
children in difficult circumstances;
expanding the role of the media; andmonitoring and evaluation.
• Media campaigns can draw attention
to ECCE, in the process raisingawareness of child care practices, forexample, by disseminating knowledge
about newborns, the importance ofbreastfeeding and reading to children,and the role of fathers.

Governance issues
Who takes the lead?
ECCE involves multiple sectors,
programmes, and actors, making
coordination a frequent challenge.
Most countries, especially in Europe
and Latin America, offer one or
two years of pre-primary within the
education system, but other forms of
ECCE, especially for children under 3,
fall under the auspices of ministries
in charge of health, social welfare,children and women’s affairs, etc. The
involvement of multiple players canbring together agencies with different
areas of expertise. It can also lead toconflict between ministries. In somecountries, no single administrative
body bears the main responsibility for
ECCE, making neglect more likely.
In about 60% of the 172 countries
with available information, ministries—
generally the education ministry—oversee or coordinate programmes
targeting children over 3. In 30% of
the countries, this function is sharedwith another official body, such asa national institute or subnational
authorities. In the remaining 10%,
non-government bodies are thesole supervisors of early childhood
programmes.
Although in a majority of countries
administrative responsibility for earlychildhood is divided by age group,
since the late 1980s a growing numberof countries (including Brazil, Chile,
Jamaica, Kazakhstan, New Zealand,South Africa, Spain, and Vietnam)
have designated education as the leadministry for children from birth. Placing
early childhood under the ministryof education can make it easier toincrease attention to young children’s
learning and their transition to primaryschool. But since early childhood
education is often not compulsory,it may struggle for attention andresources within the education
bureaucracy. Another concern isthat ECCE will be under pressure to
become more formal and school-like.
Regardless of who takes the lead,coordination is needed among theinstitutions and sectors involved.
Coordination mechanisms provide
a forum for potentially achieving acommon vision encompassing resources,
standards, regulations, training, andstaffing. Too often, coordinating
bodies tend to be short-staffed andadvisory only, limiting their ability tomove the agenda for young children
forward. South Africa is unusualin that its National Coordinating
Committee includes representatives
from several ministries, training
institutions, universities, and NGOs; it
was instrumental in creating pre-primary
programmes for all 5- and 6-yearolds. In Jamaica, the Early Childhood
Commission established in 2002 brings
together all policies, standards, andregulations pertaining to day care andearly childhood development under one
institutional umbrella.
Arguments for decentralising ECCE
are often made, to the effect that
services and resources can thus bebetter adapted to community needs
and circumstances. In practice,though, decentralisation can resultin uneven policy implementation,access, and quality. In many transition
countries, decentralisation in the 1990s
aggravated inequality between wealthyurban and poor rural communities andled to deterioration in the quality andcoverage of kindergartens.

17

18 Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

It has since increasingly beenrecognised that decentralisation mustbe accompanied by effective central
government oversight and regulation.
Sweden, for example, introduced
a maximum fee for preschools anda new curriculum framework after
deregulation of fees in the 1990s led
to widespread disparities.

Private actors as potential partners
Non-government actors—communitybased groups, NGOs, faith-basedorganisations, and for-profit
entities—play a large role in ECCE inmany countries. Faith-based groups
are active in parts of Europe, North
America, Latin America, and the ArabStates.

for regulation, quality assurance,
monitoring, and promotion of equity.

Improving quality
Governments need to ensure thatminimum acceptable standards aremet for all children. Such regulations
should apply to all providers, public or
private. Most governments regulate
ECCE programmes, using easy-tomeasure structural indicators ofquality such as class size, staff-childratios, availability of materials, andstaff training. Equally important,
if not more so, are caregiver-childrelationships, inclusion of families,
and responsiveness both to cultural
diversity and to children with special
needs.

In about half of the 154 countries
with data, enrolment in private
institutions is less than one third of
the total; in one third of countries, theprivate sector accounts for two thirds
or more of enrolment. The private
sector is particularly prominent in
Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab States,
the Caribbean, and East Asia, while
public provision has been integral to
ECCE development in most European
countries. In many transition countries,
private providers stepped in where thestate pulled out, leading to innovative
practices but also to inequalities ofaccess.

Five Latin American countries havedeveloped national quality standards
for ECCE, and seven Caribbean
countries have assessed programme
quality using a common instrument toevaluate the learning environment andcaregiver-child interactions. Quality
assessment projects have also beendeveloped in Bangladesh, Vietnam,
and Pakistan with assistance frommultilateral organisations, NGOs,
and foundations. A few countries
have early learning and development
standards, that is, national

The role of for-profit actors isparticularly controversial. Proponents
of for-profit service provision say it
increases competition and parental
choice. Critics note that private
providers operating outside the public
system often exclude poor children via
high fees and entrance requirements.
There is a risk of a two-track system,with low-income parents obliged to
opt for lower-cost, poorer-quality
public alternatives. To avoid thisinequality, governments need to takea more proactive role and develop
a commonly agreed framework

The quality of interaction between
carer/teacher and child is the single
most important determinant ofprogramme success.

expectations of what children should
know and be able to do. Standards
must be established with care, andused with care, however. When set at
national level, they may not take into
account cultural, linguistic, and otherforms of diversity; misused, they canstigmatise children, labelling them as“failures” or “not ready” to begin
school.
Since 2003, the Going Global Project,a partnership of UNICEF and Columbia
and Yale Universities in the USA, hashelped countries to prepare national
early learning and development
standards in a range of domains. The
project is participatory, with standards
based on scientific knowledge andresearch on early learning that takes
into consideration cultural, linguistic,
and socioeconomic differences. After
six pilot projects, Going Global isexpanding to other countries in Latin
America and the Caribbean, East Asia,
and Central Europe. Countries haveused the standards to revise preschool
curricula and teacher training models,
as well as for national monitoring.
Governments need to enforce, notjust develop, regulations that promote
quality. Yet many countries do nothave the resources to do this. An
alternative approach used in somecountries (Australia, the UK, andthe USA) is accreditation, which
encourages programme staff to reflect
on their practice and to address any
limitations before having their work
validated by an external expert.

Promoting quality through staffing
policies
How children interact with theircaregivers and teachers largely
determines the quality of learning.
Several industrialised countries are
moving toward an integrated system
of ECCE provision from birth to school
entry that has involved restructuring
staff qualifications and training,bridging the divide between the
education and care components of
ECCE. In Singapore, for example, allchild care and preschool personnel
now undergo the same training andaccreditation.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

A key issue is how to recruit andretain large numbers of trained ECCE
personnel. To draw more candidates
to the field, some countries aredeveloping flexible entry routes
into higher education and teacher
training. Several Caribbean islands
give competency-based credit. Modern
technology is also being harnessedin several countries. Pakistan has
created an Early Childhood Education
Certificate Programme that includes
in-service training workshops. The
Early Childhood Development Virtual
University (ECDVU) is a training andcapacity-building initiative to help
meet the need for leadership anddevelopment in this field in Africa
and the Middle East. Students, who
are in-service early childhood staff,
are taught by faculty members fromaround the world and work withmentors in their own country or
region.
To ease the transition from earlychildhood programmes to primaryschool, several countries are
introducing measures to assure
professional continuity between
the two levels. These measures
include joint training (offered in
France, Ireland, Jamaica, and theUK), emphasis on active learning
approaches, and equal professional
status between ECCE and primaryschool teachers.
Despite these positive trends, several
areas require further attention in
relation to training: engaging parents
and other caregivers more actively;
adopting inclusive practices forchildren with disabilities and otherspecial education needs; working withlinguistically and culturally diverse
children; and meeting the needsof orphans and vulnerable children(particularly those affected by HIV/
AIDS) and of children in emergency
and crisis situations.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Assuring adequate financing
Expanding and improving ECCE will
require raising additional public andprivate funds and allocating themthrough more efficient financing
mechanisms. Given the variety ofsituations involved, country-specificestimates of the costs of expanding
and improving ECCE are of greater
policy relevance than a global estimate.
Sixty-five of the seventy-nine countries
with data allocated less than 10%
of education spending to ECCE in
2004. Over half of those sixty-fivecountries allocated less than 5%. Of
the fourteen countries allocating morethan 10%, most were in Europe.
As a share of GNP, public expenditureon pre-primary education is greatest
in Central and Eastern Europe(0.5%), compared to 0.4% in North
America and Western Europe and0.2% in Latin America. For North
America and Western Europe as awhole, expenditure on pre-primary
programmes is around 26% of thetotal for primary education, though theshare rises to around 60% in Franceand Germany. In Latin America andthe Caribbean, expenditure on preprimary education averages 14% ofthat on primary, with large variations
across countries.
The small share of total public
education spending allocated to
pre-primary education reflects low
enrolment ratios rather than low
spending per child. For all countries
with data, average public expenditure
per child is 85% of that at primarylevel. Indeed, when the full costs of
pre-primary education are met by
the state, as tends to be the casestill in the former socialist countries
of Central and Eastern Europe, unit
costs are almost 25% higher in preprimary than in primary education,
mainly because pupil-staff ratios arelower. In North America and Western
Europe and in Latin America andthe Caribbean, public expenditure
per child in pre-primary education
averages closer to 70% of that inprimary (though reaching about 90%
in France, Germany, and Greece). In
the few countries with data in SubSaharan Africa, South and West Asia,and the Arab States, spending on preprimary is very low as a percentage ofthat for primary.
While it is not possible to provide a
realistic estimate of the global cost of
meeting the ECCE goal, a few countryspecific exercises have been carriedout, using a range of assumptions
about coverage and content. Fivescenarios have been estimated for
Burkina Faso, for example, which isa country characterised by very low
coverage of children from birth toage 6 (1.2% in 2005). Such exercises
can clarify the financial implicationsof specific choices (coverage, natureof service, child/staff ratios, staff
qualifications, facilities) and explore
the trade-offs, such as choosing toinvest in providing more coverage as
opposed to putting more money into
staff qualifications.
Overall, funding of ECCE is bothpublic and private, with public funds
often provided by more than one levelof government. The relative sharesof public and private funding varyconsiderably. Among OECD countries,
for instance, the parents’ share runs ashigh as 60% of the total in the UnitedStates but closer to 20% in Sweden
and France. Among developing
countries the variations are evengreater. In Indonesia, ECCE is mainly
regarded as a family responsibility,and public funding represents nomore than 5% of the total, usually
as subsidies to privately operated
urban child care centres. In Cuba, thegovernment covers 100%.
An alternative to funding ECCE
programmes directly is forgovernments to provide resources

19

20 Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education(vouchers) enabling parents topurchase services from one of a variety
of providers, an approach taken in
Chile, the United States, and Taiwan(China). In France, the fiscal andsocial security systems help offset
families’ child care costs. Since 2002,
the government of Vietnam requires
10% of the education budget to beallocated to early childhood.
Corporations and other employers
may contribute to the provision of
ECCE, either directly or indirectly. In
Colombia, for instance, all private
and public employers must deposit
the equivalent of 3% of their total
payroll into an earmarked accountthat allows the semi-autonomous
Institute for Family Welfare to provide
direct services and to contract with
NGOs and others to provide services,
including community child care, parent
education, nutritional supplements,
school meals, and child protection.
Other options include microenterpriseloans to child caregivers to establish
home-based day care and the bundlingof day care with services such as
primary schooling or health centres.

Targeting vulnerable anddisadvantaged children
ECCE programmes’ greatest
potential is among vulnerable anddisadvantaged children, but theseare precisely the children least likely
to have access. When countries have
limited resources, how can they beallocated to reach those most in
need? Two types of targeting areused: geographical, and by income.
In addition, inclusion policies often
involve targeting particular groups,
such as the disabled and linguistic or
ethnic minorities.
Geographical targeting is theapproach of India’s Integrated
Child Development Services, which
concentrates on remote rural regions,urban slums, and tribal areas, reachingover 23 million children. Its integrated

package of nutrition, immunisation,
health check-ups and referral services,and education for children under 6
and for pregnant and nursing mothers
has a positive impact on the survival,
growth, and development of young
children. Vietnam targets remote andmountainous areas. Kenya targets
children from pastoralist communities(see box 2). Targeting by income, themore common option, can include
restricting eligibility, subsidising
enrolment of the poor, and provisionof vouchers.
With ECCE, as with other public
services, there are risks that targeted
approaches may not attract enoughpolitical support. Targeting cansegregate children, leading to aconcentration of the disadvantaged
in programmes. Precise targeting is
also very difficult. Many developed
countries have publicly fundedpreschool programmes that serve
all children but also target extra
resources to the most disadvantaged
communities. This approach is lessapplicable in many developing
countries, where most children are
excluded from ECCE. A phase-in
approach may be most feasible, wherecountries develop a national ECCE

policy for all children and settings, but
begin by focusing public resources on
the most disadvantaged.

Aid policies for earlychildhood
ECCE is not a priority for development
aid. In a survey of sixty-eight donors,
only four of the seventeen agencies
responding identified ECCE as a
specific component of their overall
aid strategy; the others include earlychildhood within the educationor health sector strategy. Donors
give priority to centre-based ECCE
programmes covering children from
3 to primary school age, and, to alesser extent, to support for parents
and caregivers. UNICEF and USAID
were the only respondents supporting
informal ECCE programmes. While notnecessarily representative of all donors,
these funding priorities may not match
country needs. Less formal and lesscostly arrangements than centres canhelp reach more children.
It is difficult to separate earlychildhood from basic education in
the main international aid database.
In addition, some components of
ECCE are included in other sectors,
such as health. Low-income countries

BOX 2

Child care in Kenya’s pastoralist communities
Kenya’s national policy of universal free primary education has put
pastoralist communities in the north under pressure to become more
settled. Loipi—“shade” in the local language—are enclosed places where
grandmothers once looked after children, passing on oral traditions andskills. Since 1997, several pastoralist peoples have pooled resources tocare for children aged 2 to 5, with professional guidance and financial
support. Now reaching over 5,200 children, the Loipi programme is rooted
in traditional approaches to childrearing while offering access to health andnutrition services, income generation, and information on harmful practices
such as female genital mutilation. Enclosures and play materials are made by
the community. Results include improved access to vaccination programmes,
better nutrition, and, according to preschool teachers, a positive influenceon children’s transition to primary school.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education

tend to receive less funding for ECCE
than middle-income ones. Apart from
Australia, Greece, and Spain, donors
allocate to the pre-primary level
less than 10% of what they give toprimary education; a majority allocate
less than 2%. ECCE’s share of total aid
to education is less than 0.5% for amajority of donors.
Stronger international politicalsupport, increased commitment
from developing countries, and more
extensive dissemination of research on
the benefits of ECCE would help toincrease donor agencies’ commitment
to ECCE issues. So would improvedalignment of ECCE policies witheducation and health sector plans andpoverty reduction strategies.

Conclusion
The EFA goals represent acomprehensive approach to education,
but governments are not taking
sufficient public responsibility forliteracy and ECCE.

ECCE workforce. Effective partnerships
with the private sector—a major ECCE
actor in many countries—should be
developed and the sector regulated tosafeguard against inequities in accessand quality.
Although national policy should
encompass all young children, publicresources in certain contexts may be
best targeted initially to vulnerable anddisadvantaged children. It is essential
to include ECCE in key documents on
public resource allocation (national
budgets, sector plans, PRSPs). Other
donors need to follow UNICEF’s lead inprioritising early childhood issues.
Technical expertise should be brought
to countries to assist in collecting
more detailed information on ECCE,
especially with regard to programmes
for children under 3, ECCE personnel
other than pre-primary teachers,

quality measures, and national
expenditure on pre-primary education.
EFA means education for all, not justeducation for some. It means all six
goals, not just those related to primaryschool. It means paying particularattention to the early years, wheneffective steps to offset disadvantage
can be taken at lowest cost, and whenstrong foundations are most easily laid.
Failing the youngest generation today
not only violates their rights, it also
sows the seeds of deeper poverty andinequalities tomorrow.
For more information, contact:
Cynthia Guttman,
Communications Officer
E-mail: c.guttman@unesco.org
For the full report, as well as forregional/translated reports, see
http://www.efareport.unesco.org

High-level political endorsement,
recognising ECCE as essential tochildren’s present welfare and future
development, is key. Countries need todevelop national policy frameworks on
ECCE for children from birth to age 8
with a clearly designated lead ministry
or agency that works with all related
sectors. They need to upgrade the

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Colombia: UNESCO/Alejandra Vega Jaramillo

There is a very strong case for ECCE.
All too often it is the missing link in
the education system. Giving children
strong foundations through holistic,
quality early childhood programmes
carries enormous benefits, especiallyfor the most disadvantaged andvulnerable. Such programmes not
only improve the child’s overall
development at an age of huge
potential, they contribute to better
achievement in primary school, thereby
improving the efficiency of education
systems.

By neglecting the connections between early childhood, primary and secondary education andadult literacy, countries are missing opportunities to improve basic education and in the process,the prospects of children, youth and adults everywhere.

21

22

Our global responsibility:

The developmental potential ofover 200 million young children
The Lancet Early Child Development Series
Patrice Engle“Finally I have data to convince
my Minister of Finance to invest in
early child development,” reported
Malawi’s Minister of Women and Child
Development at University College
London’s Institute of Child Health inJanuary 2007.
The Minister was responding to thelaunch of The Lancet Series on Early
Child Development in Developing
Countries. Since January 2007,
launches, meetings, and press all over
the world have responded to the fourmain messages of The Lancet Series’
three papers:• Over 200 million children under
5 years of age worldwide are notdeveloping to their potential due topoverty, poor health and nutrition, andlack of stimulation.
• The best-documented immediaterisk factors include stunting, ironand iodine deficiency, and lack of astimulating and nurturing environment.
• Interventions exist at scale that can
reduce the loss of human potential
during early childhood, particularly
for the most disadvantaged. These
include parenting interventions,home visits, health-related services,and comprehensive programmesthat combine learning opportunities,
nurturing environments, nutritionand health, and environmental
improvement.
• Although effective interventions
are available, coverage is far too
low, political will is lacking, andopportunities are being lost.
Sir Richard Jolly, development
economist and Honorary Professor

at the Institute of Development
Studies, UK, has been a senior UN and
UNICEF official for over twenty years,
including during the UNICEF Child
Survival Revolution. Jolly compared
the significance of The Lancet Seriesfindings to the development of
immunisation and oral rehydration
therapy, which dramatically reduced
child deaths in the 1980s and 1990s.
These papers, if taken seriously, Jolly
stated, “could have an impact hardly
less dramatic. The problem is not thelack of knowledge about what to
do but the lack of professional andpolitical commitment to mobilise action
on the scale required—and for poorer
communities in countries throughout
the world” (Jolly, 2007, pg. 8).
The Lancet’s Early Child Development
Series is the culmination of a oneand-a-half-year research project led byPatrice Engle, of California Polytechnic
State University and UNICEF, and Sally
McGregor of the University of London,
with a core team (International Child
Development Steering Committee)
comprised of Maureen Black, Universityof Maryland; Ted Wachs, Purdue
University; Betsy Lozoff, Universityof Michigan; Julie Meeks-Gardner,
Caribbean Child Development Centre;
and Susan Walker, University of theWest Indies. Twenty-one authors
from organisations and universities
around the world and representatives
from the World Bank, World HealthOrganisation, and UNICEF contributed
to the project and the series.
Young children living in poverty indeveloping countries are exposed toa variety of biomedical risks, suchas malnutrition and exposure to

infectious diseases and environmental
contaminants that threaten theirsurvival. Not surprisingly, policy
makers, governments, and nongovernmental organisations areconcerned with strategies to promotechild survival. However, there is far
less emphasis, either at a policy or anintervention level, on the cognitive andsocial development of the millions ofsurviving children living in poverty indeveloping countries. Although policy
makers and government ministries
recognise that poverty is related
to poor health and increased childmortality, there is little recognitionof the negative impact that social
conditions related to living in poverty
have on children’s cognitive or socialemotional development.
The risks associated with living inpoverty, when suffered early, areparticularly harmful to children’s
long-term success. They affect thearchitecture of the developing brain,
which is so critical to learning, health,and behaviour.
This lack of emphasis on children’s
early development is particularly
worrying given that one of the major
United Nations 2000 Millennium
Development Goals is to ensure that all
children complete primary schooling.
The Lancet Series of three papers
shows that almost half of thechildren—89 million—not developing
their potential live in South Asia,and that ten countries account for
145 million (66%) of the 219 million
disadvantaged young children in
the developing world. These ten
countries are India, Nigeria, China,
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Our global responsibility: The developmental potential of over 200 million young children

Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia,
Pakistan, Democratic Republic ofCongo, Uganda, and Tanzania. In
eleven countries (Angola, Zambia,
Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia,
Niger, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso,
Nepal), over 60% of children are
not reaching their potential. These
disadvantaged children are likely to dopoorly in school and subsequently have
low incomes, high fertility, and provide
poor care for their children, thus
contributing to the intergenerationaltransmission of poverty (GranthamMcGregor et al. 2007). The loss in
productivity is estimated to be morethan 20% of yearly adult income forthe 219 million disadvantaged children
when they become adults.

Paper 1. Developmental Potential
in the First 5 Years for Children
in Developing Countries(Grantham-McGregor et al., 2007)
Over 200 million children indeveloping countries fail to reach theirdevelopmental potential in the first
five years of life. How do we come tothis conclusion? The first paper in The
Lancet Series uses international dataon poverty and chronic malnutrition
to estimate the number of children
around the world who do not reach
their developmental potential andwho are at risk for educational
failure. These data are proxies ofpoor child development because indeveloping countries, poverty andassociated problems of poor healthand undernutrition undermine
children’s development early in life
when brain growth is rapid. As aresult, millions of young children
from developing countries living inpoverty are likely to be exposed tomultiple biological and psychosocial
risks that can detrimentally affect their
cognitive, motor, and social-emotional
development.
The early years affect school progressand eventual productivity. The paper
presents evidence from developing
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

countries showing that children’s
cognitive and social-emotional
development prior to school enrolment
influences their subsequent progress inschool. Fewer years of schooling andless learning per year in school havelong-term economic consequences
for adult income and economic
productivity. The review of educational
progress in developing countries
indicates that over 20% of children
enrolled in school fail to complete
primary school and that many children
have lower achievement levels thanchildren from developed countries atthe same grade level.
To derive an estimate of the numberof young children from developing
countries who are at risk for deficits
in early development through the first
five years of life and for subsequent
school failure, ideally a global indicatorof child development would be used.
However, since no such indicator

exists, the paper utilised existing
country-level databases to assess theextent of early childhood chronic
growth retardation (stunting, defined
as length-for-age less than –2 standard
deviations [SD]) as well as to establish
the number of young children living in
absolute poverty (income of less than
US$1 per day).
Both poverty and stunting are strongly
associated with poor development,with low scores on cognitive tests
prior to school entry, and with poor
achievement while the child is inschool. The paper therefore used theprevalence of early childhood stunting
and living in absolute poverty as
indicators of the numbers of children
from low-income countries who are
at risk for delayed development andfor not achieving their developmental
potential. To avoid double-counting
children who are both stunted andliving in poverty, the authors estimatedfigure 1

Pathways from poverty to poor child development
Sociocultural risk factors include gender inequity, low maternal education, andreduced access to services. Biological risks include pre- and postnatal growth,
nutrient deficiencies, infectious diseases, and environmental toxins. Psychosocial
risks include parenting factors, maternal depression, and exposure to violence.
Although not shown in this figure, the consequences of impairments in childdevelopment are likely to be intergenerational. Poorly developing children arelikely to remain in poverty as adults, thus continuing the pathways shown for
their offspring. Reproduced from Walker et al., 2007.

23

24 Our global responsibility: The developmental potential of over 200 million young children

the prevalence of stunting amongchildren in poverty and calculated thenumber of stunted children plus thenumber of non-stunted children living
in poverty.
The analysis indicated that there
are 559 million children under 5 indeveloping countries, including 156
million who are stunted and 63 million
who are not stunted but are living inpoverty, for a total of over 219 million
children under 5 years of age whoare not fulfilling their developmental
potential. Most of these children
live in South Asia and Sub-SaharanAfrica. Regression analyses reveal thatboth poverty and stunting predict the
proportion of children who do notreach the final grade in primary school.
Much of the research and intervention
has been done in industrialised
countries, however, it is worth notingthat only 11% of the world’s young
children live in those countries, andonly 3% live in the USA.

Paper 2. Child Development:
Risk Factors for Adverse Outcomesin Developing Countries(Walker et al., 2007)
The second paper in The Lancet Series
identifies biological and psychosocial
risks for children’s developmentthat have been well documented,
can be modified, and are of highprevalence in the developing world.
These risk factors, outlined in figure
1, affect children’s school readinesson school entry, which is predictiveof later school progress. School
readiness is affected by cognitive
ability, social-emotional competence,and sensorimotor development. It is
important to recognise that school
readiness is not just a function ofmastering academic skills like letter
recognition, but also involves manysocial skills, such as understanding
how to work in a group.
Poverty, and the sociocultural
conditions that accompany it, often
occurs along with the biologicaland psychosocial risks that affectdevelopment through changes inbrain structure and function. Children
growing up in poverty are frequently
exposed to multiple and cumulative
risks. Research clearly indicates that thegreater the number of risks, the morea child’s development is compromised.
For example, in Guatemala there wasa linear decrease in adolescents’ school
achievement and cognition when agreater number of risk factors wereexperienced by children in the first
three years of their lives.
Paper 2 identifies four key risk factorsthat are causally and consistently
linked to development, affect large
numbers of infants and young children
from developing countries, and can be
modified. The four risk factors that fit
these criteria are:• malnutrition that is chronic andsevere enough to cause stunting• inadequate cognitive stimulation orlearning opportunities

figure 2

DQ/IQ scores of stunted and non-stunted Jamaican children from age 9-24 months
through 17-18 years
The data show long-term deficits associated with stunting and the sustained benefits to stunted children who received ahome-visiting programme providing early childhood stimulation. Reproduced from Walker et al., 2007.

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Our global responsibility: The developmental potential of over 200 million young children

TABLE 1

Risk factors for poor development
Risk

Prevalence

Effects on children

Strength of Evidence

Stunting

25-30%

StrongIodine deficiency
Iron deficiency
anaemia35%
20-30%

Lack of childstimulationand learning
opportunities
Maternal
depression
Exposure toviolence

60-90% of parents
do not stimulate

6-13 DQ points, (0.4-0.8 SD), social andemotional effects
9-13 IQ points (1 SD)
1.73 IQ/10 g/L Hb; some supplementation
trials show benefits to motor, social-emotionaland cognitive development of 0.3-0.4 SD
Provision of stimulation/learning opportunities
has benefits of 0.5-1.0 SD in IQ

17%, rates may behigherMajor armed
conflict in 27-38%
of countries from1990-2003, affects
20 million children
11%

0.5 to 1.0 SD in cognitive development scores

Correlations clear; need fortreatment approaches
Urgent need for research,
particularly on interventions

40% of pop. in 90
countries, 300-600
million40%

Significant cognitive impairments associatedwith severe malaria or cerebral malaria, or
number of episodes of malaria
2-5 IQ points

Lack ofbreastfeeding

40-50%

Small effects on cognition (2-5 IQ pts), may
affect bonding

Parental loss

Over 43 million
orphans in SubSaharan Africa,
16% below age 6 (7million) in 2003
Unknown

Descriptive studies show higher rates ofmortality, some behaviour problems, sense ofvulnerability, depression, improves over time

Intrauterine
growthretardation
Malaria

Lead levels

Lack of maternal
responsivity
Zinc deficiency
Intestinal
helminths
HIV infection

33%
33%
2%

Diarrhoea

CommonArsenic

High in areas suchas Bangladesh
Depends on area

Manganese,
pesticides

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Behaviour problems, post-traumatic stressdisorder0.25 to 0.5 SD compared to non-low birthweightStrongStrongStrong

Associated with developmental
deficits to age 3y; need for
longitudinal studies
Negative associations clear; needs
further study
Correlational studies in developed
and developing countries
Consistent but small to moderate
effects; hard to design goodstudies
Need for interventions andintervention research

Associated with less secure attachment, lower
cognitive ability and more behaviour problems
Cognitive development and activity
Cognitive development

Need for more intervention studies

Can be severe; developmental delays, language
delaysSome associations with cognitive development
found
Lowered IQ

Evidence for risk is strong

Lowered IQ

Mixed results
Inconsistent results

Suggestive; needs further study
Correlational data; only
investigated in older children
Some data but need for more25

26 Our global responsibility: The developmental potential of over 200 million young children• iodine deficiency• iron-deficiency anaemia
These risks are shown in table 1. Basedon available evidence, there is also anurgent need for further investigation ofother potentially important risk factors,
such as inadequate breastfeeding,zinc deficiency, maternal responsivity
and depression, exposure to violence,
malaria, diarrhoea prevalence, andparental loss. Table 1 summarises 18
known and potential biological andpsychosocial risk factors that affectsubstantial numbers of children fromdeveloping countries and that have
epidemiological, if not causal evidence
linking them to impairments in young
children’s cognitive or social-emotional
development. For each, the effects
on children are shown, along withthe strength of our knowledge about
their potential effect on children’sdevelopment.
Stunting, or low height for age, often
beginning with low birth weight,
has been associated with cognitive

as well as social and emotional
effects, including apathy, less positive
affect, less play, and more insecureattachment than well nourishedchildren. Where reported, gains
during intervention range from 6-13
developmental quotient (DQ) points
compared with controls. The datafrom a study in Jamaica over 18 years
illustrates this effect on IQ (see figure2). A long-term follow-up—throughto age 30—in Guatemala showed
the effects of early supplementation.
Stunting affects approximately 25-30%
of young children in the developingworld.
Iodine deficiency can cause irreversible
mental retardation, making it themost common preventable cause ofmental retardation. Severe iodine
deficiency causes cretinism, but evenmodest levels of iodine deficiency
have been shown to have an effecton cognitive functioning. Twometa-analyses of studies in 1994
and 2005 reported deficits in IQ
in iodine-deficient children of up

figure 3

IQ scores among female Korean orphans at age 10
Subjects varied by history of malnutrition and by age of adoption into middleclass homes (indicating length of time in a more stimulating environment).

to 13 IQ points (almost 1 standard
deviation) and improvements of 9 IQ
points with supplementation. One
longitudinal study showed that thegreatest impact on child IQ occurred
if supplementation began in the firstand second trimester of pregnancy.
Worldwide, 35% of people haveinsufficient iodine intake.
Anaemia, of which half is irondeficiency anaemia, affects between
45 and 65% of children under 4
years. Evidence is conclusive that
infants with iron-deficiency anaemia
are developmentally at risk in the
short term, and consistent evidenceshows that they continue to be atrisk in the long term, despite irontherapy. Children with iron deficiency
have been shown to have poorer
mental and motor functioning (1.73
IQ points for each 10 g/L decrease inhaemoglobin levels), social problems,anxiety or depression, and inattention
through adolescence. Supplementation
with iron during the preschool years
has been shown to have an impact inthe short term, but as yet there havebeen no long-term trials.
All but one of 16 studies in developing
countries showed that improving
children’s cognitive stimulation or
child learning opportunities resulted in
improvements in children’s cognitive
development of between one half andone standard deviation. The evidence
strongly supports the importance ofearly cognitive stimulation for young
children’s cognitive abilities. Followup studies in Turkey, South Africa,
and Jamaica show lasting benefits
for cognition with some maintained
up to age 17 (figure 2). Four of fivestudies also report benefits for socialemotional development in areas suchas social behaviour, self confidence, andpositive affect. One mechanism may
be increases in maternal sensitivity andresponsivity. Results from two small
studies indicate that when caregivers

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Our global responsibility: The developmental potential of over 200 million young children

are aware of their children’s abilities,
they are more responsive and theirchildren do better in the short term.
Risk factors often co-occur or
cumulate. Exposure to multiple risks
has a much larger impact on children’sdevelopment than exposure to single
risks. These cumulative risks contributeto a developmental trajectory that
includes poor health, immature
behaviour, lack of readiness forschool, poor academic performance,
limited preparation for economic
opportunities, and perpetuation of
the intergenerational cycle of poverty.
Because many young children fromdeveloping countries experience
multiple risks, integrated interventions
that address several of these identified
risk factors are the most effective.
Such interventions are discussed below.

Paper 3. Strategies to Avoid the Lossof Developmental Potential in morethan 200 Million Children in theDeveloping World (Engle et al., 2007)
Based on the conclusions from theprevious papers in the series, paper 3
evaluates programmes that promotechild development and either preventor ameliorate the effects on childdevelopment of stunting, iodine
deficiency, iron-deficiency anaemia,
and inadequate stimulation.
The evidence from industrialised
countries is clear that there are shortand long-term effects of quality
programmes to improve disadvantaged
young children’s cognitive and socialemotional functioning; these effects
have been shown to last through to
age 40, and cost-effectiveness has
been demonstrated. However, theapplicability of these findings to adeveloping country context has beenquestioned. For this reason, paper 3
reviewed evaluations of programmes
to improve children’s cognitiveand social-emotional development

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

exclusively from developing countries,
representing all regions.
There has been increasing interest in
early child development (ECD) fromboth the health and educational
sectors within developing countries.
For example, by 2005, the WorldBank had financed loans to fiftytwo developing countries for ECD
programmes, for a total of 1.6 billion
dollars. In addition, at least thirty-fourdeveloping countries had policies on
ECD, and UNICEF was supporting
parenting programmes in sixty
countries. However, there have been
relatively few systematic evaluations of
ECD programmes.
Through an extensive search, we
identified twenty ECD programmesthat have been implemented indeveloping countries that had an
adequate comparison group, measured
children’s outcomes, and occurredprior to age 6. The programmes fall
into three groups: (1) centre-based
early learning; (2) parenting or parentchild interventions; and (3) communitybased interventions. All include
health and nutrition interventions.
As noted in the earlier papers,
strong evidence exists of an additiveor synergistic effect of stimulationand improved nutrition on a child’sdevelopment. This is illustrated bystudies showing the combined effectof initial malnutrition and improved
The challenge is clear.
The size and nature of the
problem is defined, along withthe seriousness of its longterm consequences. Whatremains open is only the world’s
response, and our own.
Richard Jolly, The Lancet 2007

environment on the outcomes ofchildren adopted into middle-class
homes (see figure 3).
All of the eight evaluations ofcentre-based programmes finda significant effect on children’s
cognitive development, either throughpreschools or treatment centres
for malnourished children. These
programmes also demonstrate noncognitive gains such as social skills,
self-confidence, willingness to talk toadults, and motivation. Evaluations
that follow children into school report
improvements in the number ofchildren entering school, age of entry,
retention, and performance.
Of the six parenting interventions using
home visiting that were evaluated,
four found positive effects on childdevelopment. The remaining twoparenting programmes used groupsessions with mothers. In one, mothers
practice skills to play with their children,with demonstrated short- and longterm effects on child development.
In the other programme, sessions
include information, but no activities.
The mothers’ knowledge increased,
but no impact on child development
was demonstrated. Effective parenting
programmes need to be designed tohelp parents improve their skills withchildren. One approach is to emphasiseskill-based activities involving children.
Five of the six community-based
programmes illustrate the beneficial
effects of integrating ECD programmes
into existing community-based systems.
The remaining programme shows
how reduced gains occur when childdevelopment interventions are notdelivered with a sufficient level ofintensity.
The size of the effect ranged from
one third to almost two standard
deviations (effect sizes). Given theseeffect sizes, if there were coverageof 90% of disadvantaged children27

28 Our global responsibility: The developmental potential of over 200 million young children

with an early child development
programme, the result would be a netincrease of a year of school per child.
Preschool enrollment would contributeto increases of about 5-10% in lifetime
labour income.
Effective ECD programmes have thefollowing characteristics:• They are targeted towards
disadvantaged children.
• They provide services for younger
children (children under 3).
• They continue throughout earlychildhood.
• They are of high quality, as definedby structure (e.g., child-staff ratio,
staff training) and processes (e.g.,
responsive interactions, variety ofactivities).
• They provide direct services tochildren and parents.
• They are integrated into existing
health, nutrition, or educational
systems.
Despite convincing evidence,programme coverage is low. Barriers
include a lack of awareness ofchildren’s loss of developmental
potential, and its cost; lack ofglobally accepted indicators for childdevelopment to monitor progressor ensure accountability; difficultyof making long-term investments;
multiple stakeholders for young
children; and the lack of a single
strategy or “package” of interventions
for ECD. Efforts are underway toaddress some of these concerns,
such as the lack of a global indicator,and systems for calculating costs are
improving. But more work is urgently
needed to determine what kinds ofinterventions are most effective inwhich contexts.
To achieve the Millennium
Development Goals of reducing
poverty and ensuring primary school

completion for girls and boys,
governments and civil society should
expand high-quality, cost-effective
ECD programmes. Other policy
recommendations include making
child development promotion a goal
in developing countries and including
indicators to track progress in childcognitive and social-emotional
development.

Where do we go from here?
Since these articles appearedin January 2007, launches andpresentations have been held in
Bangladesh, London, and Washington,
D.C. to organisations that include
the Paediatric Academic Society,
the Society for Research in Child
Development, and the Interamerican
Development Bank; other events areplanned.
At the London launch in January 2007,
many organisations made statementsof commitment to investing in ECD, or
discussed their emerging plans to workin ECD. These organisations include
the UK Department of International
Development (DFID), WHO, UNICEF,
World Bank and UNESCO; foundations
such as Bernard van Leer and Aga
Khan Foundations; and NGOs
including CARE, Save the Children,
and Plan International.
In the coming year, the International
Child Development Steering Groupwill join with the Consultative Groupto advocate for ECD programmes.
Several activities are planned.
With support from the Rockefeller
Foundation, the International Child
Development Group met with otherresearchers and policy advocates at
the Bellagio Study and ConferenceCentre in October 2007 to address
three goals: supporting the effort todefine indicators for child development
and coverage; establishing priorities forresearch; and evaluating componentsof successful programming. In two

years, we hope to be able to report on
the global progress made in reducing
the number of young children who
are not achieving their potential. The
Care for Development Module ofIntegrated Management of Childhood
Illness (IMCI) will also be revised andprepared for launching.
The opportunity is here—and weneed to work together now to be
sure that each child not only survives,
but thrives.
For more information, contact:
Dr. Patrice Engle, Professor
Department of Psychology andChild Development, California
Polytechnic State University
E-mail: pengle@calpoly.edu

References
Engle, P. L., Black, M. M., Behrman, J. R.,
Cabral de Mello, M., Gertler, P. J.,
Kapiri, L., et al. (2007). Strategies
to avoid the loss of developmental
potential in more than 200 million
children in the developing world.
The Lancet, 369, 229-42.
Grantham-McGregor, S., Cheung,
Y. B., Cueto, S., Glewwe, P.,
Richter, L., Strupp, B., et al. (2007).
Developmental potential in the first
5 years for children in developing
countries. The Lancet, 369, 60-70.
Jolly, R. (2007). Early childhood
development: The global challenge.
The Lancet, 369, 8-9.
Jones, G., Steketee, R. W., Black,
R. E., Bhutta, Z. A., Morris, S. S.,& The Bellagio Child Survival Study
Group. (2003). How many deaths
can we prevent this year? The Lancet,
362, 65-71.
Walker, S. P., Wachs, T. D., Gardner, J.
M., Lozoff, B., Wasserman, G. A.,
Pollitt, E., et al. (2007). Childdevelopment: Risk factors for adverse
outcomes in developing countries.
The Lancet, 369, 145-57.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Early child development: A powerful equaliser

Early child development:

A powerful equaliser
Lori G. Irwin, Arjumand Siddiqi, Clyde Hertzman

The World Health Organisation set
up a global Commission on Social
Determinants of Health (CSDH) in
March 2005 to promote better healthand greater health equity for all. The
CSDH is intended to draw society’s
attention to the social determinants ofhealth that are known to be among
the leading causes of poor healthand inequalities between and withincountries. The CDSH is structured
around specific themes that underpin
actions on social determinants ofhealth in a global context. The arms of
the CSDH involve country work, civilsociety, and nine knowledge networks:
Early Child Development (ECD);
Measurement and Evidence; Womenand Gender; Priority Public Health
Conditions; Employment Conditions;Globalisation; Social Exclusion; Urban
Settings; and Health Systems. These
networks constitute the Commission’s
primary mechanism for organising andsynthesising knowledge, strengthening
country practice, and supporting
leadership. Twenty Commissioners
who are global and national leadersfrom political, government, civilsociety, and academic fields willcommunicate the key messages andrecommendations of the Commissionin policy arenas and draw politicalattention to social factors that lead toill health.

1

The Knowledge Network on Early
Child Development (KN-ECD) has
informed the CSDH of opportunities
towards fostering leadership, policy,
action, advocacy, and the intersectoralcollaboration needed to create positivechange for children in a range ofcountry contexts through two main
documents: an evidence synthesis titled
The Total Environment Assessment
Model for ECD; and a summary of
its findings and recommendations
titled Early Child Development: A
Powerful Equaliser. The following
excerpt summarises the KN-ECD’s
Final Report and the discussion andrecommendations that have resulted
from the work of evidence synthesis.1

Executive Summary
The principal strategic insight of the
KN-ECD’s Final Report for the CSDH
is that the nurturant qualities of theenvironments where children growup, live, and learn matter the most for
their development, yet parents cannot
provide strong nurturant environments
without help from local, regional,
national, and international agencies.
Therefore, this report proposes ways
in which government and civil society
actors, from local to international,
can work in concert with families toprovide equitable access to strong
nurturant environments for all children

globally. Given the powerful impact of
ECD on adult life, it is imperative thatgovernments recognise that disparities
in the nurturant environments requiredfor healthy child development willaffect nations and societies differently.
In some societies, inequities in ECDtranslate into vastly different life
chances for children; in others,
disparities in ECD reach a critical point
where they become a threat to peaceand sustainable development.
As is well known, the early years
are marked by the most rapid
development, especially of the central
nervous system. The environmental
conditions to which children
are exposed in the earliest years“sculpt” the developing brain. The
environments that are responsible
for fostering nurturant conditions
for children range from the intimate
realm of the family to the broader
socioeconomic context shaped bygovernments, international agencies,and civil society. These environments
and their characteristics are thedeterminants of ECD; in turn, ECD is adeterminant of health, well-being, andlearning skills across the balance of thelife course.
Economists now argue on the basis of
the available evidence that investment
in early childhood is the most powerfulThis work was made possible through funding provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada and undertaken as work for the Early
Child Development Knowledge Network established as part of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). The
views presented in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the decisions, policy, or views of WHO, the CSDH
Commissioners, or the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 2929

30 Early child development: A powerful equaliser

investment a country can make, withreturns over the life course many times
the size of the original investment.
The scope of the report is fourfold:
1.	To demonstrate which environments
matter most for children. This includes
environments from the most intimate(family) to the most remote (global).
2.	To review which environmental
configurations are optimal for ECD,
including aspects of environments thatare economic, social, and physical innature.
3.	To determine the “contingency
relationships” that connect thebroader socioeconomic context ofsociety to the quality of nurturing in
intimate environments such as families
and communities.

4.	To highlight opportunities to foster
nurturant conditions for children at
multiple levels of society (from familylevel action to national and global
governmental action) and by multiplemeans (i.e., through programmatic
implementation and through childcentred social and economic policy
development).
In keeping with international policy
standards, early childhood is defined as
the period from prenatal development
to 8 years of age. The evidentiary base,as well as interpretation of the bodyof evidence, is derived from three
primary sources: (1) peer-reviewed
scientific literature; (2) reports fromgovernments, international agencies,and civil society groups; and (3)international experts in the field of
ECD. This evidence-based, multiple-

sourced approach ensures that theconclusions and recommendationsof this report are borne out of theperspectives of a diverse array of
stakeholders and are thus broadly
applicable to societies throughout theworld.
One guiding principle is an equitybased approach to providing nurturant
environments for children everywhere.
Multiple perspectives—from theprovisions of human and child rights
declarations to the realities reflectedby research evidence—make clear theimportance of equity. Programmes
and policies must create marked
improvements in the circumstances ofsocieties’ most disadvantaged children,
not just in absolute terms, but incomparison to the most advantaged
children as well.

figure 1

Total environment assessment model for early child development

Source: Siddiqi, Irwin & Hertzman, 2007. Total Environment Assessment Model for Early Child
Development Report for the Commission on Social Determinants of Health.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Early child development: A powerful equaliser

In this report we provide a framework(see figure 1) for understanding theenvironments that play a significant
role in providing nurturant conditions
to all children in an equitable manner.
The framework acts as a guide tounderstanding the relationships
between these environments,
putting the child at the centreof her or his surroundings. The
environments are not hierarchical,
but rather are truly interconnected.
At the most intimate level is thefamily environment. At a broader
level are residential communities(such as neighbourhoods), relational
communities (such as those based onreligious or other social bonds), andthe ECD service environment. Each ofthese environments (where the child
actually grows up, lives, and learns)
is situated in a broad socioeconomic
context that is shaped by factors at theregional, national, and global level.
The framework affirms the importanceof a life course perspective in decision
making regarding ECD. Actions taken
at any of these environmental levels
will affect children not only in thepresent day, but also throughout theirlives. The framework also suggests that
historical time is critically influential
for children: large institutionaland structural aspects of societies(e.g., government policy-clusters,
programmes, and the like) matter for
ECD, and these are built or dismantled
over long periods of time.
While genetic predispositions andbiophysical characteristics partiallyexplain how environment andexperience shape ECD, the best
evidence leads us to consider the childas a social actor who shapes and is inturn shaped by his or her environment.
This is known as the “transactionalmodel,” which emphasises thatthe principal driving force of childdevelopment is relationships. Because
strong nurturant relationships canmake for healthy ECD, socioeconomic
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

circumstances, despite theirimportance, are not fate.
The family environment is the primarysource of experience for a child, bothbecause family members (or otherprimary caregivers) provide the largest
share of human contact with children
and because families mediate a child’scontact with the broader environment.
Perhaps the most salient features ofthe family environment are its socialand economic resources. The gradienteffect of family resources on ECD is
the most powerful explanation fordifferences in children’s well-being
across societies.
Children and their families are also
shaped by the residential community(where the child and family live) andthe relational communities (familysocial ties to those with a common
identity) in which they are embedded.
Residential and relational communities
offer families multiple forms of
support, from tangible goods andservices that assist with child rearing toemotional connections with others thatare instrumental in the well-being ofchildren and their caregivers.
“Relational community” refers to theadults and other children who help
form a child’s social identity (tribal,
ethnic, religious, language/cultural).
Often, this is not a geographicallyclustered community. Relational
communities provide social networks
and collective efficacy, including
instrumental, informational, andemotional forms of support. However,discrimination, social exclusion, andother forms of subjugation are often
directed at groups defined by relational
communities. The consequences ofthese forms of discrimination (e.g.,
fewer economic resources) can resultin discernable inequities. Moreover,relational communities can besources of gender socialisation, both
equitable and non-equitable. Relational
communities are also embedded in thelarger sociopolitical contexts of society;as such, reciprocal engagement withother relational groups, civil society
organisations, and governmental
bodies is a means of addressing theinterests and resource needs of theirmembers.
The availability of ECD programmes
and services to support children’sdevelopment during the early years
is a crucial component of an overall
strategy for success in childhood. ECD
services may address one or moreof the key developmental domains(i.e., language-cognitive, socioemotional, and physical development).
The quality and appropriateness ofservices is a central consideration in
determining whether existing ECD
programmes improve outcomes forchildren. Some principles of ECD
programmes and services are readilytransferable between places; however,many programme features require
tailoring to the social, economic, andcultural contexts in which they arefound. Health care systems (HCSs)
are key to providing many important
ECD services. The HCS is in a uniqueposition to contribute to ECD, since
HCSs provide facilities and services
that are more widely accessible inmany societies than any other form of
human service, are already concernedwith the health of individuals
and communities, employ trained
professionals, and are a primary pointof contact for child-bearing mothers.
The influence of the regional andnational environments is fundamental
in determining the quality andaccessibility of services and resources
to families and communities. These
environments are also salient forunderstanding the levels of socialorganisation at which inequalities inopportunity and outcome may be
manifest, and the levels of organisation
at which action can be taken toameliorate inequities.

3132 Early child development: A powerful equaliser

Many interrelated aspects of regional
environments are significant for ECD,
including physical (e.g., the degreeof urbanisation, the health status of
the population), social, political, andeconomic factors. These aspects of
the regional environment affect ECD
through their influence on the family
and neighbourhood as well as on ECD
services. In contrast to more intimate
environments, such as the family, thesignificance of large environments, suchas the region, is that they affect large
numbers of children. Thus, changing
the environment at this level can
influence the lives of many children.
Much more research and accumulationof knowledge is required regarding how
regional characteristics can be modified
to positively influence ECD.
The most salient feature of thenational environment is its capacity
to affect multiple determinantsof ECD through wealth creation,
public spending, child- and familyfriendly policies, social protection,and protection of basic rights. At thelevel of the national environment,
comprehensive, intersectoral
approaches to policy and decision
making work best for ECD. Although
ECD outcomes tend to be morefavourable in wealthy countries than inpoor ones, this is not always the case.
It is clear that a commitment of 1.5 to
2.0% of GDP to an effective mix ofpolicies and programmes in the public
sector can effectively support children’s
early development. Those nations withless economic and political power areless free to determine their internal
policy agendas, and they are more
influenced by the interests of theinternational community, including
other nations and multilateralorganisations. Notwithstanding thisreality, most of the recommendationsin this report are within the capabilities
of any national government thatmeets the international criteria for acompetent authority.

The global environment can influence
ECD through its effects on thepolicies of nations as well as throughthe direct actions of a range of
relevant actors, including multilateral
economic organisations, industry,
multilateral development agencies,
non-governmental development
agencies, and civil society groups.
A major feature of the global
environment in relation to children’swell-being is the element of power in
economic, social, and political terms.
Power differentials between types ofactors, particularly between nations,have many consequences, including
the ability of some nations (mainly
resource-rich ones) to influence thepolicies of other nations (mainly
resource-poor ones) to suit their own
interests. Although power differentials
may have invidious effects on ECD,
they can be exploited for the benefitof children, too. Requiring a minimum
level of government spending on
ECD and compliance with the Rights
in Early Childhood provisions of theConvention on the Rights of the Child
as preconditions for international
developmental assistance are two
mechanisms that can be used.
Analogous mechanisms have beenused effectively in other areas ofinternational development in the past.
Civil society groups are conceptualised
as being organised at, and acting
on, all levels of social organisation,from local through global. The abilityof civil society to act on behalf ofchildren is a function of the extent
of social capital, or connectedness of
citizens, and the support of politicalinstitutions in promoting expressionsof civil organisation. When civil society
is enabled, it can engage on behalf ofchildren through many avenues. Civil
society groups can initiate government,
NGO, and community action on social
determinants of ECD.

Recommendations
To assist key stakeholders in theirpursuit of creating the conditions
that support early child development,
the evidence leads us to make thefollowing recommendations.

Creation of a global alliance for earlychild development
1. While governments can do muchto change the circumstances of theworld’s children and families, thisreview has also demonstrated theneed for global collaboration in thearea of ECD. We propose an expanded
global interagency collaboration—
the Global Alliance for Early Child
Development (GA-ECD)—that willbuild upon existing informal networksof agencies currently working on
ECD internationally, such as UNICEF,UNESCO, the Consultative Groupon ECCD, World Bank, Bernard van
Leer Foundation, Soros Foundation,
Aga Khan Foundation and WHO. This
alliance should work towards linking
ECD to the Millennium Development
Goals, especially to poverty reduction,
education, gender equality, and childsurvival.

World Health Organisation’s uniquecontribution for ECD
2. WHO has a critical role to playin advocacy for ECD as a key social
determinant of health that must be
addressed beyond the Commission on
Social Determinants of Health.
3. In their commitment to ECD andto equity, WHO should recognise,by subsuming its child survival andhealth programmes globally under thedevelopmental perspective articulated
in this report, that ECD is a key social
determinant of health playing a criticalrole for achieving the Millennium
Development Goals.
4. WHO should be responsible forprovision of technical support for
the inclusion of ECD policies within
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Early child development: A powerful equaliser

national development policies and in
the national development frameworks/
instruments (SWAPs, PRSPs, Fast Track
Initiatives, etc.).
5. WHO should provide technicalsupport to regions, countries, andpartners for the integration of simple
ECD interventions such as the IMCI
Care for Development intervention
in health services and in community
health initiatives.
6. Assessing the costs and benefitsof programmes remains a challenge,
but WHO should take responsibility forgathering data on the effectiveness ofinterventions, especially those that areconnected to the health care system.
7. WHO should commit tooverseeing an interagency
collaboration for scaling up ECD
programmes through district healthsystems in several countries to develop
models and to disseminate thesefindings to all countries.

Generating the necessary commitment
at multiple levels of society
8.	Local, regional, and national
governments should incorporate the“science of early child development”
into policy.
9.	To achieve a global consensus on
the importance of ECD, there is a need
to foster a broader and more profoundunderstanding of what is involved
in ECD, and to convey it to a muchwider audience than in the past. Thiseffort should take shape as a social
marketing campaign that expands
to include audiences not traditionally
thought of as ECD stakeholders,for example, finance and planningdepartments of government, theeconomic sector, the corporate world,and media.
10.	The Consultative Group on ECCD(a consortium that includes WHO,
UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank and
key INGOs) should continue to focus
on broad dissemination of the scienceof ECD in conjunction with a social
marketing campaign.
11. Governments, by ratifying theConvention on the Rights of theChild, have committed themselves
to realising rights in early childhood.
Implementation pilots, like thosein Jamaica, are designed to raise
consciousness among families,
communities, service providers, andpolicy makers about rights in earlychildhood, and should be a model of
how to conduct such campaigns inother countries.
12.	There must be a fully funded
global capacity-building strategy toassist countries in incorporating thescience of early child development
into policy and implementing andmonitoring rights in early childhood
under the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child.

Structural requirements for
implementation
13. Governments should create aninterministerial policy frameworkfor ECD that clearly articulates theroles and responsibilities of eachsector and how they will collaborate.
Governments should also integrate
ECD policy elements into the agendas
of each sector to ensure that they
are considered routinely in sectoral
decision making. Governments
will need to reallocate resources todecrease inequities in access to highquality ECD programmes and services;
to facilitate this reallocation, ourreview has identified evidence that canbe used as a benchmark for judging
the quality of ECD programmes andservices.
14. Children benefit most whennational governments adopt child- andfamily-friendly policies that guarantee
adequate income for all, maternity
benefits, and financial support for theultra-poor. Governments should takeup the challenge of creating policies
that allow parents and caregivers tobalance their home and work lives by
putting systems in place to ensure that
quality out-of-home community-basedchild care relevant to local culture andCambodia: Jim Holmes

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

33

34 Early child development: A powerful equaliser

context is available for the children ofworking mothers.
15. In order to have the appropriate
capacity/infrastructure to tackle
issues related to ECD, governments,
in association with international
agencies, should create interdisciplinary
opportunities for professional training
and research in ECD in resource-poor
countries. This could be achieved
through regional centres of excellence,such as that emerging at the Aga Khan
University in Karachi, and/or successful
distance education models such as the
ECD Virtual University.
16. Community involvement is an
important component of successful
ECD programming, therefore,
governments should involve
local communities in developing,
implementing, monitoring, andreviewing ECD policies, programmes,and services. Community involvement
does not absolve governments fromtheir responsibilities but ensuresstronger relationships between
government and the local communities
where service delivery occurs.

Strategies for implementation
17. Given the overlap in underlying
determinants, governments should bebuilding upon established child survival
and health programmes to make
ECD programmes accessible throughexisting platforms. The health caresystem is often the most cost-effective
platform and the most universal pointof contact.
18. Governments need to develop
strategies for scaling up effective
programmes from the local to thenational, without sacrificing thecharacteristics of the programmethat made it effective. Implementation,
integrity, and accountability at the
local level must be sustained, evenwhen programmes are scaled to thenational level.
19. Governments should ensure thatchildren are enrolled in school, thatgender inequities in years of schoolingare eliminated, and that schooling is
free and compulsory.
20. A common formula needs tobe created for calculating national
expenditures on ECD, as well as per
capita investment in children. Sucha formula could be created by the
proposed GA-ECD in collaboration
with UNICEF. An economic analysis
that indicates the return on theirinvestment that society can anticipate
from different types of ECD
programmes and services should becreated and disseminated.

Monitoring processes and outcomes
related to ECD
21.	There is an immediate need to
expand the evidence base related to
ECD programmes, services, policy,
and evaluations in resource-poor
countries where systems are stressed,
resources are low, and challenges ofbasic living are high. It is not acceptablefor inferences made from research
conducted in resource-rich countries tobe applied to resource-poor countries.
Essential in this evidence base are
economic analyses of the effectivenessof ECD programmes and services as
they occur in resource-poor countries.
22. An essential precondition for
ECD is the child’s basic right to aname and a nationality; thus, national
governments have an essential
predisposing role to play in ensuringthat all children are registered at birth,through maintaining a functioning,
comprehensive birth registry without
financial costs to families forregistration.
23. We now understand thatthe transactional nature of young
children’s relationships is far more
important for their growth anddevelopment than traditionally has
been recognised. Children do not justgrow up according to internal lawsof biology; they grow and develop
through the interplay of humanrelationships in the environments
where they live. To provide nurturant
environments for their children, allfamilies need support from communityand government. The quality of
support received by families should bemonitored by local NGOs, including
community groups and parents’committees, as part of the reporting
under the CRC. The goal is universal
access to a range of ECD services,
including parenting and caregiversupport, quality child care, nutrition,social protection, primary healthcare,and basic education—preschool
through school-age. To be effective,these services need to be coordinatedat the regional level and delivered at
the local level in a way that puts thechild at the centre.
24. National governments andinternational agencies should be
responsible for funding independent
monitoring of ECD programmes andservices for quality and effectiveness.
This should include an assessmentof barriers to and opportunities
for access, with a particular focus
on decreasing inequity in ECD.
Mechanisms need to be developedand implemented to insure that
communities and central agencies
work together to collect reliable dataon outcomes.
This report’s principal contribution isto propose ways in which governmentand civil society actors, from local tointernational, can work in concert withfamilies to provide equitable access tostrong nurturant environments for all
children globally. Now is the time tobuild on the global momentum of theChild Survival, Child Health, Education
for All, Gender Equity and Child Rights
agendas towards better health for all.
For more information, contact:
Lori G. Irwin, Associate Director,
Human Early Learning Partnership
Telephone: (604) 827-5395
E-mail: lori.irwin@ubc.ca

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

35

General Comment No. 7:

Implementing child rights inearly childhood
Alan Kikuchi White,
External Relations Officer, Bernard van Leer Foundation
The Convention on the Rights of theChild (CRC) reminds us that children,
while retaining their entitlement to
the full range of human rights, areoften marginalised or excluded, andthus represent a special case requiring
additional safeguards. Within theconstituency of children, particulargroups remain vulnerable to further
risk factors that require additional
measures for State ratification. One
method of addressing these risk
factors is through the developmentof a General Comment, a statementof some ten to twenty pages basedon the expertise and experience of
the UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child (UNCRC), a body composedof independent experts electedby countries that have ratified theConvention.
Since the CRC’s development, theUNCRC has adopted ten General
Comments (see General Comments
at http://www.ohchr.org/english/
bodies/crc/comments.htm) guiding
States on specific issues such as HIV/
AIDS, the aims of education, violenceagainst children, and, in 2005, General
Comment 7 (GC7) on implementing
child rights in early childhood.
GC7 explains how the CRC should beinterpreted when it comes to young
children. It was drafted and adopted in
response to the UNCRC’s observationthat young children were almost
entirely overlooked in States parties’
reports on their progress towards
implementing the CRC. Where
present, references were limited tochild mortality and basic health andwelfare; they neglected broader
considerations of the realisation of
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

child rights for, and on behalf of,young children. The implication ofsuch inadequate awareness of young
children’s rights by States parties wasthat the States parties ignored their
obligations towards young children, or
treated children as objects of care but
not as subjects actively participating intheir development and in the social lifeof family and neighbourhood.
Early childhood specialists informed thedeliberations of the UNCRC (in 2004)
that went into the drafting of GC7 (in2005). In collaboration with UNICEF
and the Committee, the Bernard van
Leer Foundation published A Guide
to General Comment 7: ImplementingChild Rights in Early Childhood, whichcontains extracts from the papers theCommittee considered when drafting
GC7.
The purpose of GC7 is to recognise
the rights of all young children as
outlined in the CRC, as well as toemphasise early childhood as a vital
period in acknowledging these rights.
The Comment provides a definitionof the term “early childhood” andidentifies characteristics and features
specific to this developmental period.
In addition, GC7 examines research,general principles, and rights in earlychildhood. The Comment also explores
policies and programmes, capacity
building, and the responsibilities ofparents and States parties for earlychildhood.

GC7: Young children as active
social participants
GC7 recognises that in implementing
the CRC, States parties have often

overlooked young children as rights
holders (GC7 para.3). The Comment
seeks to redress this oversight byclarifying State obligations for CRC
implementation with respect toall children “below the age of 8”(GC7 para.4). In the introduction,
the Committee declares: “Thisgeneral comment arises out of theCommittee’s experiences of reviewing
States parties’ reports. In many cases,very little information has been offeredabout early childhood, with comments
limited mainly to child mortality, birth
registration and health care” (GC7para.1).
In contrast to the emphasis on thislimited set of “usual suspects” inState reports, GC7 presents an
ecological and holistic view of young
children as competent social actors
actively participating in families, peergroups, communities, and society(GC7 para.5). Young children are
regarded as active meaning-makers
with “evolving capacities” (CRC Art.5)
requiring age-appropriate guidanceand support and whom, both asindividuals and as a constituency,
have a voice that must be given due
consideration. Parents/caregivers
and States are reminded to balance
control and guidance with respect tothe evolving capacities of the young
child, as well as to keep in mind
the obligation to facilitate genuine
participation of young children in theprocesses affecting their development.
To further consider GC7, we
make reference to the CRC’s four
fundamental principles:• Non-discrimination (Art.2)

36 General comment no. 7: Implementing child rights in early childhood• The “best interests of the child”(Art.3)• Life, survival, and development(Art.6)• The right to express an opinion andto have those opinions considered(Art.12)Fundamental principles
The four fundamental principles,as with all of the CRC articles,
are to be regarded as universal,
interdependent, and indivisible.
We cannot, for example, consider
genuine participation in isolation
when to ignore views and voice isdiscriminatory (when adults decide,
without appropriate or even any
consultation, what is best for thechild) and to deny agency inhibits
full personal development. GC7
recognises that young children are,by virtue of their age, discriminatedagainst, marginalised, and excluded.
GC7 reinforces the non-discriminatory
language of the CRC (Art.2),
identifying young girls as particularly
vulnerable, but referring also to
discrimination in relation to disability,
HIV/AIDS, ethnic and social caste,
refugee and asylum status, birth outof wedlock, and being affected bymultiple dimensions of discrimination(GC7 para.11).
Secondly, with respect to the bestinterests of the child, GC7 emphasises
the CRC (Art.3) obligation to consider
those best interests in relation to alldecisions and actions which affectchild development. At an individuallevel, GC7 reinforces the issue ofparticipation in decisions relating to
the care, education, and health of
the young child. However, GC7 also
reminds States that young children,
as a specific constituency, must be
considered more widely in policy
making with respect to the indirect
impacts of environmental, transport,
and housing policy (GC7 para.13).

Thirdly, with respect to CRC (Art.6)
and life and development, GC7
acknowledges early childhood asa time of particular vulnerabilities.
The Comment identifies specificthreats to positive development, fromthe physical effects of preventablemalnutrition and disease to thedetrimental psychosocial impactsof neglect and abuse. Measures toaddress these vulnerabilities (e.g., in
relation to improving perinatal care,
reducing infant mortality, and general
steps to improve child well-being) arecalled for. The question of well-being
is considered holistically, encompassing
both the physical and psychosocial
development of the child. GC7 againemphasises the interdependenceof rights in relation to well-being
and development through theimplementation of the rights to health,to education and play, and to social
security (GC7 para.10).
Lastly, we consider specifically the rightto express a view and to have thoseviews given serious consideration.
GC7 reinforces this principle andidentifies the young child as “anactive participant in the promotion,
protection, and monitoring of theirrights” (GC7 para.14). Discriminatory
views of young children that deny
them voice and agency on the basisof age and immaturity, or that view
them as empty vessels passively
subject to socialisation processes oras incompetent, undeveloped, andin need of training, are rejected. The
Comment also points to the multiple
languages or paths of communicationthat are available to children and toadults either willing or able to listen.
It is argued, therefore, that young
children are able to communicate
many thoughts, feelings, and wishes
long before verbal or written formsof language are available to them. In
facilitating that communication, GC7
calls on States to develop policy thatallows for appropriate consultation

with young children, encourages
families and caregivers to anchor thechild’s view in their activities, andtrains parents, professionals, andother authorities in facilitating thatparticipation.
The conflict between adult attitudes
and childhood capabilities is addressedin GC7 with respect to the notionof the “evolving capacities” of thechild as identified in the CRC (Art.5).
Evolving capacities are referred toas “the process of maturation andlearning whereby children progressively
acquire knowledge, competencies
and understanding.” GC7 is very clear
on the interpretation of this article inrelation to young children. Evolving
capacities is an enabling principlethat requires parents, caregivers, andprofessionals, with appropriate Statesupport, to adjust levels of direction,
guidance, and control with respect tothe child’s emerging interests, wishes,and capacity for autonomous decision
making. Evolving capacities are notan endorsement of authoritarianpractices which restrict autonomy andself-expression, justified by appeals to
the incompetence and immaturity ofchildren or the need for socialisation(GC7 para.17).
In essence, GC7 embraces thenotion of the young child no longer
powerless, voiceless, or invisible but
as a positive, participating social actor,
actively “being” in the here and now,rather than solely as “becoming” forthe future (GC7 para.14).

Implementation
With regard to the care and protectionof young children, GC7 focuses onparental/caregiver responsibilities andthe State’s obligation to support thosecaring environments. In this regard, theComment restates the CRC definitionof family as the “fundamental group”
and the “natural environment” forgrowth and well-being, but recognisesthat the concept of family extends
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

General comment no. 7: Implementing child rights in early childhood

well beyond the “nuclear” model.
Parents and caregivers are identified
as principal actors in the constructionof identity and the development ofskills, knowledge, and behaviours andas duty-bearers in the realisation of
the young child’s rights (GC7 para.15).
States are therefore reminded of their
obligation to support these caregiving
environments and their facilitation ofchild participation.
On health, in addition to provisions
such as sanitation, immunisation, andclean drinking water, GC7 calls forage-appropriate health education foryoung children that allows them toparticipate actively in healthy lifestyles
and, ultimately, in the realisation of
their right to health (GC7 para.27).
With respect to social security, GC7(para.26) refers to CRC (Art.27) andthe entitlement to a standard of livingthat is adequate for the “physical,
mental, spiritual, moral and social
development” of the child.
On education, GC7 reiterates the aimsof education expressed in General
Comment 1 (GC1), to “empower
the child by developing his or her
skills, learning and other capacities,
human dignity, self-esteem andself-confidence” (GC1 para.2).
Human rights education is called
for that facilitates the young child’s
practice of rights and responsibilities,
making them active participants in
the realisation of their rights (GC7para.28).
In meeting these obligations, GC7
calls on States to implement properly
resourced, human-rights-based,
coordinated strategies and training
which set professional standards forage-appropriate practice.

Summary
GC7 has been drafted to reflect theconcept of child participation asa cross-cutting issue. As such, the

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

emerging vision, which runs like a
golden thread through the whole
document, is one of an actively
participating and socially competentyoung child. This young child is
ecologically situated within family
and caregiving environments, in
relationships with peers, as part ofa community, and as a member ofsociety. This young child is to beconsidered holistically as a being
whose emotional, social, physical,
and cognitive capacities are evolving
in various social and cultural settings.
GC7 presents a vision of the young
child that embraces holistic andecological considerations and requires
us to reconsider young, active,
participant children in the broadest
possible sense, both as individuals andas a constituency.

GC7 Working Group
Information is limited on the useof the General Comment by States
parties. Often Comments are notdistributed and are thus not known.
If they are read, they tend to be
regarded as theoretical in nature
because they address a problem
in general. Obviously they require
operationalisation to facilitate States
parties’ implementation efforts andreporting.
The convening of a GC7 Working
Group comprised of experts in the areaof early child development and childindicators, child rights experts, andlegal experts is an attempt to addressthese issues based on GC7. It is thefirst of its kind.
Because of the various collective
interests of the GC7 Working Group in
the matter of young children’s rights,
and because of the UNCRC’s identified
need to raise the profile of General
Comments through disseminationand operationalisation, the GC7
Working Group met with the UNCRC

in September 2006. An operationalframework of indicators was proposed
to assist States parties in the analysisof young children’s enjoyment of
their rights and hence encourage
more appropriate reporting by States
parties. As a result of that meeting,former UNCRC Chair Professor Jaap
Doek invited the interested ECD andearly childhood rights stakeholders
to prepare and propose a suitable
framework of early childhood rights
indicators.

Framework development
process for GC7 indicators
A proposed framework for childrights indicators is currently being
developed by the GC7 Working
Group, which includes representativesof UNCRC, UNICEF, WHO, Bernard
van Leer Foundation (BvLF), Human
Early Learning Partnership (HELP), theConsultative Group on Early Childhood
Care and Development (CGECCD), and
the World Bank, in consultation withothers.
GC7’s content and structure has
provided the foundation for decisions
about which indicators to include in
the framework; the UNCRC Reporting
Guidelines are the primary source forthe cluster structure of the framework.
In addition, the GC7 Working Groupis building upon the previous work of
UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster
Survey (MICS)/household survey studies
by adapting some of their indicators toinclude, or more explicitly represent,
young children. A final framework will
be presented to the CRC committee inearly 2008.
For more information, contact:
Alan Kikuchi White
E-mail: alangrahamwhite@gmail.com
Website: http://www.bvleerf.nl
Also available in Spanish andFrench.

37

38

The new UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities:

Initial thoughts on implications for ECCD
Garren Lumpkin,former UNICEF Regional Adviser for Education,
The Americas and Caribbean Regional Office

Brief Overview of CRPD,
linked to the WorldFit for Children (WFFC)
commitments and action plan
In December 2006 the UN General
Assembly adopted the Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(CRPD). This new Convention,
signed by an impressive eighty-one
countries on the first session day(March 30, 2007), “opened a new
era in securing the presently unmet
rights of the majority of children
with disabilities and their families.” 1
By the end of 2007, 121 countries
had signed the CRPD and sixty-eightthe Optional Protocol, while during
this same time period, fourteen
ratified the Convention and seven
the Protocol. 2 With the Millennium
Development Goals Agenda (MDG)
and other international initiatives(especially those framed within the
Education for All Declaration and Planof Action) a “re-energised force”
has been generated to mobilise and/or strengthen national governmentand civil society organisations todesign and implement—in a collective
effort—more sustainable and scaledup strategies and programmes toguarantee established rights and topromote the inclusion and participationof the most excluded individuals.
For the young child, the CRPD builds
on other child and adolescent related
rights frameworks, one being the
Declaration of Heads of State andGovernment and the Plan of Action
adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly following the May 2002

Special Session on Children. Two of theestablished principles and objectives
highlighted in the above-mentioned
declaration give emphasis to the rights
of all children and the importance to“start early” and address in an integral
manner the multiple elements thatguarantee the “best possible start inlife” (see box 1).3
Within the corresponding Plan of
Action for “Creating a World Fit
for Children,” specific mention
and commitments were made toguarantee the rights of some of themost excluded children—those with adisability and with other special needs.
For example:“We will take all measures to ensure
the full and equal enjoyment of
all human rights and fundamental
freedoms, including equal access tohealth, education and recreational
services, by children with disabilities
and children with special needs, toensure the recognition of their dignity,
to promote their self reliance, and to

facilitate their active participation in
the community.” 4“It is vital that national goals forchildren include targets for reducing
disparities, in particular, those whicharise from discrimination on the basisof race, between girls and boys, ruraland urban children, wealthy and poor
children, and those with and without
disabilities.” 5Importance of the earlyyears—for all young children
In recent times, the importance offocusing on the critical early yearsof life and what it means for thechild’s long-term development
has gained significant recognition
within the scientific and educational
world, combined with an emerging
understanding by other key members/
sectors of society. Research andspecific country-level experiences andresults confirm the importance and themultiple benefits of increasing financial
and human investments for integrated

BOX 1

Two general principles of WFFC Declaration• Leave no child behind: “Each girl and boy is born free and equal in dignity
and rights; therefore, all forms of discrimination affecting children mustend.”
• Care for every child: “Children must get the best possible start in life.
Their survival, protection, growth and development in good health and withproper nutrition is the essential foundation of human development. We
will make concerted efforts to fight infectious diseases, tackle major causesof malnutrition and nurture children in a safe environment that enables
them to be physically healthy, mentally alert, emotionally secure, sociallycompetent and able to learn.”

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

ECCD programmes and family-based
services and support.
Since for all children the first years
are critical, support to immediate andextended family members is essential
to create the required caring andstimulating environment. But the reality
for many children with a disability and/or having special health needs is thatthey are often fated to a “poor startin life” and denied timely and criticallearning opportunities and protective
mechanisms to help them develop to
their full potential. Their families inmany cases do not receive the needed
support to provide this environment.
Children with disabilities then facebarriers not only within their families
and communities, but all too often they
are also denied sustainable access to all
forms and levels of quality educationand health care, especially during theearly years. In addition, recognition
should be given to the challenges ofchildren whose parents have disabilities,
and interventions to address their needs
and rights (as expressed in the CRPD)
should be guaranteed.
Because experiences and support
during the early years influence
the child’s lifelong learning andinclusion, family and community
efforts to create a healthy, safe, andstimulating environment are criticalfor all children. More important,
for those children living in poverty
and violent situations and/or facedwith specific developmental delays
and/or disabilities, more systematicinterventions and quality support are
required for them and their extended
family. Box 2 outlines the findings
from research on the importance ofthe early years for infants and young
children with developmental delays
and/or disabilities. 6 / 7 Research clearly
demonstrates the importance ofprevention of or early intervention fora number of disabilities in order to help
children develop to their full potential.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Potential implications of the
new UN Convention on the
lives of young children
The new UN Convention (CRPD) offersa renewed opportunity for every
country, community, and organisation
to “re-energise” and/or reexamine
existing legislation, policies, budgets,and programmes and to promote
coordinated efforts to ensure that all
persons with disabilities are guaranteed
the same rights as others. But, the
CRPD should not be seen in isolationfrom other International Human Rights
standards and specific development
commitments, such as the Convention

on the Rights of the Child, the UN
Standard Rules on the Equalizationof Opportunities for Persons with
Disabilities, and the Education for
All Declaration (see Annex 2). “Allpoint the way towards overcoming
discrimination and recognizing theright to full participation of children
and adolescents with disabilities—in
the home and community, in schooland health services, during recreation
activities and in all other aspects oflife.” 8 Governments and civil society
are now challenged to take advantageof the complementary role of eachstandard and commitment.

BOX 2Highlights on critical issues(based on research and experience)• The years 0-3 are critical in the formation of intelligence, personality,
and social behaviour, and the effects of neglect are cumulative.
• Research has demonstrated that at least 80% of the brain’s capacity isdeveloped before the age of three.
• Brain development is much more vulnerable to environmental influences
than suspected. This includes not only nutrition but also the quality ofinteraction, care, and stimulation.
• There are proven ’windows of opportunity’ for learning during the firstyears of a child’s life. If these windows are not opened at the critical time
period, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for a particular type of learning
to occur at a later date.
• For almost all impairments, the timing for intervention is critical andbecomes particularly important when a child runs the risk of missing an
opportunity to learn during a state of maximum readiness.
• It is not uncommon for some disabilities to go unnoticed unless parents
are aware of what to look for. For example, many children are not identified
as being deaf or hearing impaired until the age of two or more. Since
hearing is connected to every other aspect of development, however,
it is important to make an early identification.
• Developmental delays should be prevented or reversed during this early
period of rapid brain growth. It becomes increasingly difficult to reverse
delays after age three.
Source: One-in-Ten RI/UNICEF publication “Early Intervention for Children with
Disabilities” and Consultative Group Draft Handout—Cornerstone 1: Pregnancy
to Age Three (2007)

39

40 New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

What must be considered as a
critical aspect of the CRPD? The
new Convention makes a major shift
away from the medical to the social
model of disability, which recognisesthat “obstacles to participation insociety and its institutions reside in
the environment rather than in theindividual, and that such barriers canand must be prevented, reduced oreliminated.” Also family and societal
attitudes play a critical role (especiallyin the early years), often projecting“widespread underestimation of theabilities and potential of children withdisabilities, which creates a vicious
cycle of under-expectation, underachievement and low priority in the
allocation of resources.”
Without a doubt, the CRPD provides
an additional “spark” to guarantee
the rights of young children withdisabilities and special needs. A brief
review and analysis of the CRPD
Preamble section and specific articles
will assist to reveal some importantelements to advocate for and act
upon, in relation to the rights of andrequired actions for children and theirfamilies (see Annex 1 for an overview
of specific sections supporting families
and young children with special
needs).

A specific call to action
With all the excitement and movement
for the new CRPD, we must ask
ourselves some difficult questions if
we truly want to take advantage ofthis opportunity to make a long-lasting
impact on the lives of young children
with disabilities and their families,
and advance towards achieving statedgoals:• Why, with all the knowledge wehave accumulated, combined withyears of experience and recognising
the existence of and approval bya high percentage of countries’
legal frameworks and international
commitments, are we still attempting

to explore ways to place disability and
ECCD issues on the public agenda(“discussion table”), to “make visible”
the rights and needs of some of themost vulnerable and excluded young
children, and to design and implement
specific programmes and interventions
with a priority on the early years andfamilies?
• Why, with all the intense effort
to promote and advocate for therights and participation of children,
adolescents and women with andwithout a disability and special
needs, are the youngest children withdisabilities and their families not fully
considered, even by the same adultdisability movement and/or thoseorganisations and agencies involved
with and promoting ECCD policies andspecific initiatives?
Productive efforts to achieve stated
CRPD objectives and results for all
children and adolescents—especiallyfor those young children withestablished disabilities or special healthneeds who are experiencing delays intheir development—will depend on
the capacity and commitment of all
sectors of society to undertake andsustain collective initiatives, recognising

10% (200 million) of the world’s
children and young people areborn with or develop a sensory,
intellectual or mental healthimpairment
World Health Organisationthat disabilities and existing attitudes
on rights cannot be seen in isolationand the impact of such conditions andnegative attitudes crosses all aspects
and stages of a child’s life. Existing
poverty situations—targeted for
reduction by international agencies andnational governments—are affecting

the lives of a significant portion of
the world’s population and impacting
more on those already excluded.
“Poverty is a pervasive barrier to rights
achievement and participation and isboth a cause and a consequence ofdisability. Families living in poverty aremuch more vulnerable to sickness andinfection, especially in infancy andearly childhood. They are also less likely
to receive adequate health care or to
be able to pay for basic medicines orschool fees. The costs of caring for achild with a disability create further
hardship for a family, particularly formothers who are often prevented fromworking and contributing to family
income.” 10 It is also well known thathaving a disability or a family member
with a disability makes it more likelythat one will live in poverty or descend
into poverty.
As we attempt to achieve the MDG
and EFA goals, especially in thosecomponents related to young
children and their families, we havean excellent opportunity to combine(integrate) strategies and promote
timely initiatives leading to multiple
results. We must recognize that MDG
and EFA goals will not be achieved if
children, adolescents, and adults withdisabilities and special health needs,
and their families, are left out of thepicture (considering WHO estimatesthat around 10% of the world’s
children and young people have asensory, intellectual, or mental healthimpairment).
The new Convention, with its fifty
Articles and Optional Protocol,
provides us with an important andrenewed platform for action. We, asa concerned community, must makevisible and alive those critical aspects
related to the early years that are notpresently emphasised. As a first stepand in line with emerging CGECCD
priorities, we must expand our visionand efforts in the upcoming ECCD
advocacy, social mobilisation, and
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New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

communication initiatives (basedon the 4 Cornerstones), to makethe present invisible topic of young
children with developmental delays,
disabilities, and/or special health needs
and their families more public and aconcern of all.

Please note: a more detailed
article will be prepared withspecific references to otherinternational commitments (EFA,etc.) and will include more in-depth
discussions on: (1) the importanceof early intervention and family
involvement for children withdisabilities and (2) how the CG’s
4 Cornerstones can be expanded
to include more specific elements
related to children with special
needs.

ANNEX 1

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(Overview of specific sections supporting families and young children with special needs)
Preamble The States parties to the present Convention:(d)	Recalling the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, theConvention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention against Torture andOther Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and theInternational Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
(e) Recognising that disability is an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between persons with
impairments and the attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society
on an equal basis with others.
(g) Emphasising the importance of mainstreaming disability issues as an integral part of relevant strategies of sustainable
development.
(r)	Recognising that children with disabilities should have full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms
on an equal basis with other children, and recalling obligations to that end undertaken by States parties to theConvention on the Rights of the Child.
(x) Convinced that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection bysociety and the State, and that persons with disabilities and their family members should receive the necessary
protection and assistance to enable families to contribute towards the full and equal enjoyment of the rights ofpersons with disabilities.
Article 1: Purpose
The purpose of the present Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all humanrights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.
Article 3: General principles
The principles of the present Convention shall be:(h)	Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities topreserve their identities.
Article 4: General obligations
3. In the development and implementation of legislation and policies to implement the present Convention, andin other decision-making processes concerning issues relating to persons with disabilities, States parties shall closely

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41

42 New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

consult with and actively involve persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, through their representative
organisations.
Article 6: Women with disabilities
1.	States parties recognize that women and girls with disabilities are subject to many kinds of discrimination, and in
this regard shall take measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment by them of all human rights and fundamental
freedoms.
Article 7: Children with disabilities (entire section is relevant)
1.	States parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure the full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all humanrights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children.
2. In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.
3.	States parties shall ensure that children with disabilities have the right to express their views freely on all mattersaffecting them, their views being given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity, on an equal basis withother children, and to be provided with disability and age-appropriate assistance to realise that right.
Article 8: Awareness-raising
1.	States parties undertake to adopt immediate, effective and appropriate measures:(a)	To raise awareness throughout society, including at the family level, regarding persons with disabilities, and to foster
respect for the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.
2. Measures to this end include:(b)	Fostering at all levels of the education system, including in all children from an early age, an attitude of respect for
the rights of persons with disabilities.
Article 16: Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse
2.	States parties shall also take all appropriate measures to prevent all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse by
ensuring, inter alia, appropriate forms of gender- and age-sensitive assistance and support for persons with disabilities
and their families and caregivers, including through the provision of information and education on how to avoid,
recognise and report instances of exploitation, violence and abuse. States parties shall ensure that protection services areage-, gender- and disability-sensitive.
5.	States parties shall put in place effective legislation and policies, including women- and child-focused legislationand policies, to ensure that instances of exploitation, violence and abuse against persons with disabilities are identified,investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted.
Article 18: Liberty of movement and nationality
2. Children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, theright to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by their parents.
Article 23: Respect for home and the family
1.	States parties shall take effective and appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against persons withdisabilities in all matters relating to marriage, family, parenthood and relationships, on an equal basis with others, so as
to ensure that:(a)	The right of all persons with disabilities who are of marriageable age to marry and to found a family on the basis offree and full consent of the intending spouses is recognised.
(b) The rights of persons with disabilities to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children
and to have access to age-appropriate information, reproductive and family planning education are recognised, andthe means necessary to enable them to exercise these rights are provided.
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New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

3. States parties shall ensure that children with disabilities have equal rights with respect to family life. With a view torealising these rights, and to prevent concealment, abandonment, neglect and segregation of children with disabilities,
States parties shall undertake to provide early and comprehensive information, services and support to children withdisabilities and their families.
Article 24: Education
1.	States parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education. With a view to realising this right without
discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, States parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels
and lifelong learning directed to:(a)	The full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth, and the strengthening of respect forhuman rights, fundamental freedoms and human diversity.
(b)	The development by persons with disabilities of their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental andphysical abilities, to their fullest potential.
(c)	Enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society.
2. In realising this right, States parties shall ensure that:(a) Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability, and thatchildren with disabilities are not excluded from free and compulsory primary education, or from secondary education, on
the basis of disability.
(b) Persons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality and free primary education and secondary education on an
equal basis with others in the communities in which they live.
(d) Persons with disabilities receive the support required, within the general education system, to facilitate their effective
education.
(e) Effective individualised support measures are provided in environments that maximise academic and social
development, consistent with the goal of full inclusion.
Article 25: Health
1.	States parties recognise that persons with disabilities have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable
standard of health without discrimination on the basis of disability. States parties shall take all appropriate measures
to ensure access for persons with disabilities to health services that are gender sensitive, including health-related
rehabilitation. In particular, States parties shall:(b) Provide those health services needed by persons with disabilities specifically because of their disabilities, including
early identification and intervention as appropriate, and services designed to minimise and prevent further
disabilities, including among children and older persons.
Article 26 : Habilitation and rehabilitation
1.	States parties shall take effective and appropriate measures, including through peer support, to enable persons
with disabilities to attain and maintain maximum independence, full physical, mental, social and vocational ability, andfull inclusion and participation in all aspects of life. To that end, States parties shall organize, strengthen and extend
comprehensive habilitation and rehabilitation services and programmes, particularly in the areas of health, employment,
education and social services, in such a way that these services and programmes:(a) Begin at the earliest possible stage, and are based on the multidisciplinary assessment of individual needs andstrengths.
(b)	Support participation and inclusion in the community and all aspects of society, are voluntary, and are available topersons with disabilities as close as possible to their own communities, including in rural areas.

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44 New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

Article 28: Adequate standard of living and social protection
1.	States parties recognise the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves andtheir families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions,and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realisation of this right without discrimination on thebasis of disability.
2.	States parties recognise the right of persons with disabilities to social protection and to the enjoyment of thatright without discrimination on the basis of disability, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote therealisation of this right, including measures:(a)	To ensure equal access by persons with disabilities to clean water services, and to ensure access to appropriate andaffordable services, devices and other assistance for disability-related needs.
(b) To ensure access by persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities and older persons withdisabilities, to social protection programmes and poverty reduction programmes.
(c)	To ensure access by persons with disabilities and their families living in situations of poverty to assistance from theState with disability-related expenses, including adequate training, counselling, financial assistance and respite care.
Article 30: Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport
5. With a view to enabling persons with disabilities to participate on an equal basis with others in recreational, leisureand sporting activities, States parties shall take appropriate measures:(d)	To ensure that children with disabilities have equal access with other children to participation in play, recreation andleisure and sporting activities, including those activities in the school system.

ANNEX 2

Human rights instruments and high-level decisions reinforcing the rights of persons withdisabilities
Complementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, thefollowing texts and international events specifically address the rights of persons with disabilities:
1971	Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons stipulates that a person with an intellectual
impairment is accorded the same rights as any other person
1975	Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons proclaims the equal civil and political rights of all disabled
persons and sets standards for equal treatment and access to services
1981International Year of Disabled Persons (United Nations)

1982

World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons

1983−1992 International Decade of Disabled Persons (United Nations)
1990

World Declaration on Education for All and Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs adopted
at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in March 1990, promotes “equal accessto education to every category of disabled persons as an integral part of the education system”

1993	United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities provide
detailed guidelines for policy development and implementation
1993−2002 Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons

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New UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Implications for ECCD

1994	Salamanca Statement and the Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Adopted by the UNESCOWorld Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality, Salamanca, Spain, 7-10 June 1994.
Adopted by 92 governments and over 25 international organizations, putting the principle of inclusion on
the educational agenda worldwide
1995

World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action calls upon
governments to ensure equal educational opportunities at all levels for disabled children, youth and adults,
in integrated settings

1998	Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1998/31
2000

World Education Forum, Dakar, Statement and Framework for Action established attainable and affordable
educational goals, including the goals of ensuring that by 2015 all children of primary age have better
access to complete free schooling of an acceptable quality, that gender disparities in schooling are
eliminated and that all aspects of educational quality are improved

2000	Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2000/51
2001−2009 African Decade of Disabled Persons
2002	UN General Assembly Resolution on The Rights of the Child, following the World Summit on Children, calls
upon States to take all necessary measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights andfundamental freedoms by children with disabilities, and to develop and enforce legislation against theirdiscrimination, so as to ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child’s active participationin the community, including effective access to educational and health services
2002’A World Fit for Children,’ outcome document of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children,
makes clear reference to the rights of children with disabilities, especially regarding protection fromdiscrimination, full access to services, and access to proper treatment and care, as well as the promotionof family-based care and appropriate support systems for families

2003−2012	Second Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons
2004−2013 Arab Decade of Disabled Persons
2006	UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
2006−2016 Inter-American Decade of Disabled Persons

References
1 UNICEF – Innocenti Research Centre,“Promoting the Rights of Children with
Disabilities,” Innocenti Digest No. 13, 2007.
United Nations website (United Nations Enable
Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities),
8 January 2008, http://www.un.org/disabilities.

World Fit for Children – Plan of Action, Section
A; Creating a World Fit for Children, adopted
by the UN General Assembly at the 27th special
session, 10 May, 2002.
5

2

Declaration of the World Fit for Children,
adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 27th
special session, 10 May, 2002.

Rehabilitation International – UNICEF, One-inTen RI/UNICEF publication, “Early Intervention forChildren with Disabilities,” Volume 20, 1999.
6

3

World Fit for Children – Plan of Action, Section
A; Creating a World Fit for Children, adopted
by the UN General Assembly at the 27th special
session, 10 May, 2002.
4

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Consultative Group on Early Childhood Careand Development (CGECCD), Draft Handout –Cornerstone 1: Pregnancy to Age Three (Section– “Why invest in the beginning of life?”), 2007.
7

UNICEF – Innocenti Research Centre,“Promoting the Rights of Children with
Disabilities,” Innocenti Digest No. 13, 2007.
8

UNICEF – Innocenti Research Centre,“Promoting the Rights of Children with
Disabilities,” Innocenti Digest No. 13, 2007.
9

UNICEF – Innocenti Research Centre,“Promoting the Rights of Children with
Disabilities,” Innocenti Digest No. 13, 2007.
10

45

46

Planning for Success:

Advocacy as process in Turkey’s
Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV)Frank Smith and Ayla Goksel Gocer

Effective advocacy depends on morethan a series of successful activities;
it requires a carefully thought out
process that includes analysis, planningand strategising, negotiation andconsensus building, action, andevaluation. This process maximises
limited resources and ensures that
activities have the greatest chance toinfluence people who have the power
to change a situation.
The Mother Child Education
Foundation (AÇEV) was set up in
1993 to provide both early childhood
and adult education. In its firstten years, the organisation helped
300,000 people across Turkey andabroad through its projects. The
organisation’s successful track record
gained widespread recognition and,on its 10th anniversary, AÇEV won
the prestigious Vehbi Koç Award
from the Vehbi Koç Foundation for
its work in and contribution to thefield of education. Despite its successat the local field level, AÇEV’s impact
at the national policy level remained
limited. The organisation responded
by developing an advocacy campaign
to address public perceptions andunderstanding of early childhood
education (ECE), as well as to increase
government response to the needs ofyoung children.

Early Childhood Educationin Turkey
Despite a number of limited
statements recognising the importanceof ECE, the Turkish government had
not prioritised the issue. Government
spending on ECE accounted for thesmallest fraction of its educationbudget, and no other Organisation
for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) country spenta smaller portion of its educationbudget on ECE. Consequently, in 2003
only 360,000 children (15.7%) wereenrolled in ECE services. Regional
disparities in service provision meantthat access was as low as 2% insome provinces. The vast majority ofpreschool children entered first gradewith no education, a situation thatwould seriously affect their long-term
educational success.
To address the situation and to meetits organisational objectives, AÇEVrealised that it would need to engage
at the national policy level. Moving
into the area of national advocacy
represented a departure fromAÇEV’s core work, which had been
programme based. Staff therefore
dedicated some time to understanding
the principles and steps involved in
advocacy. They then developed adetailed strategy that identified the
key obstacles to the expansion of ECE,
the means of overcoming them, andthe support base that needed to be
mobilised for this to happen.
AÇEV realised that neither thestrength of the message alone nor theorganisation’s credibility as a successful
implementer of ECE programmes were
sufficient to persuade the government
to change its policies and practice on
ECE. They needed to develop a way
to ensure that the right information
reached decision makers at the righttime—and in the right format toinfluence the policy process. Analysis
and planning were seen as critical tothe advocacy campaign. Without aset of clear and attainable objectives,a plan on how to achieve them, andadequate resources, the advocacy
effort would fail.

AÇEV’s advocacy strategy
The strategy included three phases:(1) analysis and strategic planning;(2) implementation; and (3) monitoringand evaluation.

Phase 1: Analysis and strategicplanning
Planning was key. Thus phase 1
involved:• Analysis and research to identify
the issues, problems, and possible
solutions, as well as solid evidence tohighlight the extent of the problem, its
impact, and the viability of solutions.
This analysis was the basis for thedevelopment of messages.
• A power analysis to identify key
stakeholders, including audiences,targets, and opponents, and thenanalyse their understanding andattitudes toward the issue. This step
included an analysis of how decisions
are made, who makes them, and who
influences them.
• Identification of human as wellas financial resources, taking into
consideration organisational credibility
and access to decision makers.
• Definition of strategies anddevelopment of an action plan to set
clear and realistic objectives, identify
approaches to be taken, agree on
actions with allies, and identify key
dates and the timing of decisions
made at the government level (toensure that interventions were made in
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Planning for Success: Advocacy as Process in Turkey’s Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV)a manner that linked in with politicaldecision-making processes).

Phase 2: ImplementationAÇEV engaged in a series ofactivities with partners and allies that
included media work, updating anddisseminating research, lobbying,meetings and conferences, public
mobilisation, and events.

Phase 3: Monitoring and evaluation
Monitoring was a constant processthat occurred throughout the
campaign, allowing the team tochange course as needed and toremain relevant to changes in theoutside world as the advocacy
campaign progressed. Evaluations took
place periodically, as well as at the endof the campaign, to review successand strategic direction.

A positive climate for an
ECE advocacy campaign
An analysis of the environmental,
political, and social factors in Turkey
identified a positive climate for an
advocacy campaign on ECE. This wasdue to a number of factors, including
the following:• The World Bank published a longterm impacts and cost-benefit analysis
of ECE at the end of 2004.1• The government made acommitment to prioritise an education
sector reform that included expansion,
albeit limited, of preschool coverage.
• Political stability, with one party
in power (rather than a coalition
government) for the next three years,
allowed greater possibility of policy
reform.
• The country’s economic stability
presented an opportunity for policy
reforms, advancing a social as well as
an economic stabilisation agenda.

• Turkey’s planned European Union
accession produced a greater
government desire to signal its
willingness to undertake social reforms
and engage civil society in governance.
• The planned 2007 election offered
the opportunity to influence parties toinclude ECE in their manifestos.
Based on the analysis of the climate
and an understanding of the natureof political opportunity open to the
advocacy team, two main objectives
were developed:• To increase awareness of theimportance of preschool education
among decision makers, opinion
leaders, and the general public.
• To influence a change in education
policy and make preschool education(age 5-6) universal in Turkey within five
years, utilising a variety of models andfocusing on the most disadvantaged
groups in society.
AÇEV took a three-phased approachto the advocacy campaign:• Build and consolidate alliances.
• Raise awareness about the social,economic, and political importanceof ECE through a coordinated media
public awareness campaign targeting
the general public, private sector
interests, political players, and otherkey decision makers.
• Engage the government directly,
using AÇEV’s research and expertise toshape the debate.
The main arguments for an increased
investment in ECE in Turkey were
contained in a report commissionedby AÇEV for the Education Reform
Initiative Consultative Forum of May
2003. The report, “Early Childhood
Education: Current Situation andRecommendations,” highlighted
areas of reform in Turkey. AÇEVcommissioned two further reports,“Continuing Effects of Early
Intervention in Adult Life” (Çigdaem
Kagıtçıbası, Sevda Bekman, Diane
Sunar, Zeynep Cemalcılar, AÇEV2004) and “A Cost-Benefit Analysis
of Preschool Education” (Mehmet
Kaytaz, AÇEV 2004). These reports
highlighted the strengths andweaknesses of different ECE models(e.g., home-based versus ECE centres),demonstrated long-term effects of ECE
in adulthood, and strengthened thearguments for the economic benefitsof ECE. The advocacy campaign had
three main messages:• ECE is important and there is ascientific basis for considering it so.
• Parents can and should play
an active role in supporting thedevelopment of children between theages of 0 and 6 years.
• Politicians of all parties need to do
more to address ECE.
Very soon after the campaign was
launched, Turkey’s most influential andpowerful business association, TUSIAD(Turkish Businessmen and Industrialists
Association), also commissioned
and published a report on ECE. The
press launch was conducted withthe participation of the Minister of
Education and put forward the costs
and investments needed to increase
ECE in the next five years. This made awatertight case for ECE and the needfor increased government attention.
AÇEV updated its information
regularly, thereby remaining topicalon the issue, which is important for
campaign and media credibility. A
public awareness survey was also
conducted to measure public attitudes
and understanding of the issue. This
allowed effective production andpackaging of messages.
The key message of the campaign andthe logo “7 is Too Late!” was based

1 “Turkey—Education Sector Study: Programmatic Sector Study Concept Note.” The World Bank Group, 2004.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

47

48 Planning for Success: Advocacy as Process in Turkey’s Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV)figure 1

Ads used in media and communications campaign.
The headings are “1 to 7!”; “2 years ahead!”; “More successful!”; and “Fair Chance for All!”on the Consultative Group’s “8 is Too
Late!” message, ensuring a degree ofconsistency with the messages of other
ECCD advocacy campaigns around theworld.

Campaign activities
Many activities were carried out
during the advocacy campaign,
including numerous press conferences
and television appearances, regularspots on a popular daytime women’s
television show, celebrity endorsement(from Cem Yılmaz, a popular Turkish
stand-up comedian), and support fromthe private sector. A major national
conference was held on ECE for
Economic and Social Development andwas attended by the First Lady andQueen Rania.
A media campaign was designed
and implemented with major support

from agencies and media groups.
Editors, journalists, and columnists
were kept informed, and they became
sympathetic to the campaign. A
campaign website was set up (seewww.7cokgec.org) and many otherevents were organised, including
numerous lobbying activities. The
timing of the events and the target
audiences were carefully thought out
to ensure that the events were more
likely to have the desired impact.
The media campaign, which has now
been suspended to allow AÇEV tofocus on lobbying, produced 405
articles in newspapers and magazines,
127 television news interviews, 2,800
television advertisement spots, 205
advertisements in newspapers andmagazines, 100 advertisement spots
shown during movie screenings,
and 400 outdoor billboards andposters. This tremendous output was
accompanied by an eight-week radio
show on Acık Radyo. In addition,
meetings were held at thirty-three
universities. T-shirts, bracelets, andshawls that carried campaign messages
were created by major designers
and sold in chain stores. Six major
companies now carry campaign logos
on their products.

Measuring success
The advocacy campaign was very
successful. Thirty million people (outof a population of 70 million) were
exposed to the campaign’s messages
through the various television, radio,
and print media. In the academic
year 2004-5 when the campaign
started, the preschool enrolment rate
was 16.1%; in 2006-7 it increased
to 25.1%. This translates to an
astonishing increase of 56% in access

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Planning for Success: Advocacy as Process in Turkey’s Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV)to preschool education among children
aged 4 to 6. The campaign changed
perceptions on ECE, as reflected instatements made by senior education
officials, including the Minister of
Education, on the importance of ECE.
The Minister even used the campaign
slogan in a number of speeches.
Parliamentarians are also discussing
the introduction of a compulsory
kindergarten year. An attitudinalsurvey conducted by the advocacy
team demonstrated a marked change
in attitude and understanding of ECEamong people in positions of power insociety.
In the most recent phase, thecampaign capitalised on the upcoming
national elections and ran full-pageadvertisements in newspapers callingon all political parties and the public
to promote ECE and to make universal
preschool education an election issue.
This was followed up by televisionand radio appearances by the politicalcandidates.
It was gratifying to note that manyof the political parties mentioned
ECE in their election manifestos andput forward targets for increasing
provision. However these fell shortof the campaign’s target of universal
preschool education by 2010.

Lessons learned
Measured against its objectives,
the advocacy campaign has been a
success. However, the team learnt
a number of lessons related to theplanning and implementation of largescale advocacy campaigns. AÇEVlearned that:• A five-year plan and budget isneeded in order to realistically meet
objectives.
• The plan should be rolled out
consistently and systematically; any
break in activities risks a loss of
momentum.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29• Advocacy is time-consuming in detailand follow-up; therefore adequate
human resources are needed and an
effective team needs to be built.
• The advocacy team can’t doeverything; expertise needs to be
hired in, and it is important to trust
their expert advice, in particular forthe production of creative material toensure that campaign products havea professional look and feel.
• Messages should target the people
who are skeptical rather than thealready-converted.
• Specific messages are needed tomobilise the public; be clear about
what you want people to know andto do.
• Media headlines do not mean
advocacy success. It is easy to get
carried away with communications andneglect other activities that may needdifferent strategies.
• Be clear about who the decision
makers are (they are different fromdecision approvers and decisionadvisors).
• A mechanism needs to beestablished to ensure that funds canbe collected by different organisations
for specific pre-agreed advocacy
activities. Failure to do this may lead todisagreement on how donations andfunding are used.
• An organisation’s own networks
should be mobilised.
• The media lose attention quickly;
they need to be fed with new stories
and fresh events, not rehashedinformation.
• Awareness is not an end in itself;
be clear about how you want people
to translate knowledge into action.
• International consensus andpressure can greatly increase theimpact of any national advocacy
effort.

Next steps
The campaign has been successful inraising awareness on early childhoodin Turkey. The challenge now remains
for policy changes to take place.
AÇEV has decided that it will focus
its efforts for the next two years
on lobbying for legislative change.
Under current legislation, compulsory
education begins at age 6. AÇEV is
now pushing for a change in legislation
to make compulsory education starta year before formal schooling, inkindergarten at age 5. AÇEV is also
working with the Ministry of Educationand the State Planning Organisation
for further analysis on the costs andfinancing of preschool expansion.
Efforts on the international front topromote early childhood education andraise awareness among stakeholders
and decision makers have always beenvery important for AÇEV’s work. Eventhe campaign slogan “7 is Too Late!”
was borrowed from the Consultative
Group’s “8 is Too Late!” advocacy
initiative for the Jomtien Conference.
AÇEV urges international actors suchas the Consultative Group to increase
their efforts to place early childhoodon the global agenda, as this will aid
the work of national and local actors.
Update at time of printing:
The government is making preschool
education compulsory in 10 provinces(out of 81) in the new academic year.
This piloting almost certainly means that
it will be rolled out in other provinces in
the next few years and the goal of thecampaign—to ensure that all children in
Turkey benefit from at least one year ofpreschool by 2011­—will be a reality!
For more information, contact:
Ayla Goksel Gocer
Anne Çocuk Egitim Vakfı – MotherChild Education Foundation (AÇEV)Buyukdere Cad. No 85/2
Mecidiyeköy 34387
Istanbul, Turkey
E-mail: aylag@acev.org
Website: http://www.acev.org

49

50

Engaging the private and public sectors in Brazil:

A multisectoral approach to ECCD

Alessandra Schneider, Leila Almeida, Maria da Graça
Gomes Paiva and Frank Smith 1

Coordinating the efforts of like-minded
individuals and organisations is a
key strategy for advocacy on behalfof young children. Other important
strategies include garnering the
support of potential champions forchildren and helping them to see
how they might be allies; creatingpresentations and media products to
inform, move, and persuade people;
maximising opportunities to plant theseeds of belief and introducing those
seeds to decision makers and theirsupport staff; lobbying skilfully andpersonably; and positioning advocates
strategically on committees, especiallythose who are willing to do the actual
work of drafting policy documents toensure that the belief is represented inits proper context and with sufficientweight (de los Angeles-Bautista,
Coordinators’ Notebook no. 27, 2003).
In this article we will focus on two
ground-breaking ECCD programmes
in Brazil—the Millennium Fundfor Early Childhood and Primeira
Infância Melhor (Better Early Child
Development Programme; PIM)—that
utilised these key advocacy strategies,
among others. The two programmes
complemented each other, drawing on
the strengths of the private sector tomobilise resources and public opinion,and on those of the State to formulate
the policies by which the programmes
could be effectively and sustainably
implemented.
Engaging and mobilising different
institutions on ECCD within aparticular sector greatly increases

the impact of advocacy work.
Further, engaging and mobilisingdifferent institutions across multiple
sectors can increase the overall
impact of programmes and generate
advocacy outcomes over and above
those anticipated by an individual
programme.
The Millennium Fund for Early
Childhood, supported by the WorldBank and two Brazilian private
foundations, the Mauricio Sirotsky
Sobrinho Foundation and the Gerdau
Institute, aims to enhance the qualityof early childhood centres in poor
neighbourhoods by establishing“educational boards” to promote
in-service teacher training. The
pioneering public policy programme
Primeira Infância Melhor (Better Early
Child Development Programme; PIM)
was implemented by the Rio Grande
do Sul state government with thetechnical support of UNESCO andits partner the Centro de Referencia
Latinoamericano para la Educación
Preescolar (Centre of Latin American
Reference on Preschooling Education;
CELEP).

Engaging the private sector:
The Millennium Fund for
Early Childhood
The concept of a Millennium Fundfor Early Childhood was developed in
2002 at a meeting convened by theWorld Bank to address private sector
investment in ECCD services. The idea
was that a Millennium Fund could
galvanise private sector participationand increase the effort and investment
in ECCD. The Brazilian Millennium
Fund for Early Childhood was launched
in December 2003 in the states of Rio
Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina.
The Fund had three primary sponsors:
UNESCO, the World Bank, and theMauricio Sirotsky Sobrinho Foundation(FMSS), which is part of the “Rede
Brasil Sul de Comunicação-RBS,” a
Brazilian multimedia communications
network that operates in Southern
Brazil. The latter’s participation has
been particularly useful in engaging
the media on ECCD and promoting
the Fund.
The objectives of the Millennium Fundfor Early Childhood are consistent withthose of the global commitment of
the Education for All (EFA) movement(for which UNESCO is the leading
agency for both implementationand monitoring). UNESCO has been
lobbying the private sector to invest
in the Fund and to augment the initial
seed money provided by the WorldBank.
The Millennium Fund for Early
Childhood aims to:• Improve the quality of earlychildhood care and education (ECCE)
provided by community-based,philanthropic, or public crèches andpreschools by establishing Educational
Boards 2 to promote in-service training
for ECCE teachers.
• Ensure that vulnerable children havebetter and healthier early childhoodsby increasing their opportunities to

1 Alessandra Schneider, Psychologist, is the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme Officer, UNESCO Brasilia Office; Leila Almeida,
Social Worker, is the Better Early Child Development Programme Coordinator; Maria da Graça Gomes Paiva, PhD in Education, is a UNESCO consultant;Frank Smith is an advocacy consultant.
2 Educational Boards are fully equipped resource centres that work with five local ECCE institutions, providing them with training and support.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Engaging the private and public sectors in Brazil: A multisectoral approach to ECCD

51

Brasil: UNESCO

Launching of the Millennium Fund for Early Childhood with the presence of the State Governor, private sector leaders (Gerdau Group and RBS Chairmen,
among others), and former UNESCO Brasilia Office Director, Porto Alegre, September 2003.

play and learn, thereby broadening
their cultural universe, increasing theircapacity to socialise with others, andbuilding positive values.
An important part of the Millennium
Fund structure is its Advisory Council,
a consultative body that holds
quarterly meetings to oversee theimplementation of the programme.
Council members include UNESCO, theMauricio Sirotsky Sobrinho Foundation,
Gerdau Institute, and a number ofstate institutions.
Over the past three and a halfyears, the Millennium Fund for Early
Childhood has established Educational

Boards in twelve cities in the southernstates of Rio Grande do Sul andSanta Catarina. By the end of 2006,
the programme had trained 1,010
educators from eighty-seven earlychildhood centres, benefiting 8,400
children from 0 to 6 years of age.

Impact to date
The Millennium Fund for Early
Childhood has increased theeffectiveness of ECCE institutions
and their ability to act as an effective
bridge to formal schooling. The media
campaigns to enlist support for the
programme have also contributed

to an increase in public awarenessof the importance of ECCD andhighlighted the positive impacts ofeffective ECCE provided by speciallytrained staff. As a result of the
programme’s work, one of thelargest steel companies in the world,
Gerdau Group, decided to become
an official partner of the programme
and is supporting its extension toother Brazilian states (four so far). In
addition to their financial support,
the Gerdau Group’s participation has
acted as a catalyst for other companies
to become programme partners. A
recent television campaign led by the

3 For example, M. N. McCain & J. M. Fraser, The Early Years Study: Final Report, Toronto: Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, 1999; Organisation

for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Starting Strong: Early Childhood, Education and Care. Paris, 2001 [Brazilian edition: UNESCO Brasil,
OECD, and Ministério da Saúde, Educação e Cuidado na Primeira Infância: Grandes Desafios, Brasília: UNESCO, 2002]; UNESCO, Early Childhood Services
in Brazil: Some Considerations on Services for Crèches and Preschools and on Co-ordination of Public Policies for Early Childhood [in Portuguese: Os
Serviços para a Criança de 0 a 6 Anos no Brasil: Algumas Considerações sobre o Atendimento em Creches e Pré-Escolas e sobre Articulação de Políticas,
Brasília: UNESCO, 2003]; UNICEF, Situação da infância brasileira, 2001: Desenvolvimento Infantil, Relatório, Brasilia: UNICEF, 2001; World Bank, Brazil –Early Child Development: A Focus on the Impact of Preschools, Report, Washington, 2001.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

52 Engaging the private and public sectors in Brazil: A multisectoral approach to ECCD

Gerdau Group and the RBS Chairmenthat aimed to mobilise private sector
support for the Fund had a positive
impact on the business community.
So far ten companies have become
partners, citing the Gerdau Group’s
participation as a key reason for theirsupport of the programme.

Engaging the public sector:
Primeira Infância Melhor
Though Rio Grande do Sul is one ofBrazil’s most prosperous states, only
264,225 of its children between theages of 0 and 6 are regularly enrolledin early childhood centres; of these,
16.95% are in preschools (ages 4-6)
and only 6.75% are in crèches (0-3).
A staggering 1,064,214 children
between the ages of 0 and 6 are
not officially enrolled in the local
educational systems (Censo Escolar
2006, State Secretariat of Education,
in Rio Grande do Sul). UNESCO iscurrently working with the publicauthorities to address this gap in ECCE
coverage.
In 2000 UNESCO, UNICEF, and theWorld Bank supported the federal
government and a local NGO, theInstituto Zero a Três (Zero to Three
Institute), to organise three scientificevents where leading experts
presented key findings on ECCD 3
in Brasilia (Federal District), Porto
Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) and Riode Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro). Among
those attending these events weremembers of the state government of
Rio Grande do Sul. The presentations
made such an impression on thesemembers of government that, when
they were in a position to do so, theydecided to design and implement an
ECCD pilot project called “Primeira
Infância Melhor” (Better Early Child
Development Programme; PIM). They
did this with guidance and technicalsupport from UNESCO. The pilot
project was presented to the State
Governor by Dr. Osmar Gasparini

Terra, the State Secretary of Health,
who became a passionate advocateof ECCD and who spearheaded
the initiative at the state level. Dr.
Terra has since become the official
Programme Coordinator.
The importance of solid research ininfluencing policy makers cannot be
underestimated. It is the source oflegitimacy for the advocacy initiative
and a precondition for lobbying andpublic communications.
PIM aims to promote the holistic
development of children from before
birth (through prenatal care) and up
to the age of 6, paying particularattention to children under the age of
3. The approach is based on an ECCD
methodology developed by the Cuban
programme “Educa Tu Hijo” (TeachYour Child). The programme provides
culturally and socially relevant guidance
and information to families to enable
them to better care for and support
their children’s holistic development.
PIM focuses on low-income families,
many of whom have incomes of
only about US$65 a month, andwhose children have no access toearly childhood centres (crèches orpreschool). It also aims to promoteprenatal care for pregnant women.
The programme is being implemented
by 1,544 home visitors and currently
benefits 57,900 children under the ageof 6 from 38,600 low-income families,
as well as 4,632 pregnant women.
The programme is a multisectoral
initiative coordinated by the State
Secretariat of Health in partnershipwith the State Secretariats of
Education, of Culture, and of Justiceand Social Development. Responsibility
for its implementation lies with local
governments. By July 2007, PIM had
been implemented in 219 of the 496
municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul.
The state government has set up many
initiatives to highlight the importanceof ECCD, especially between theages of 0 and 3, including Baby’s
Day and Baby’s Week, during whichfour international seminars have beenorganised to date. Senator Hillary
Clinton was invited to the last seminar,
in March 2006. Although she could
not attend, she recorded and senta three-minute welcome speech.
These initiatives were made possible
through cooperation between state
government officials, UNESCO, andstaff from the World Bank. To reach
the whole community, the government
also produced a media campaignthat included a one-minute video anda song for the radio. The national
Globo Television aired the video on its
evening news bulletins.

Impact to dateEngaging the state has ensured thatany obstacles at the policy level havebeen addressed to increase the overall
effectiveness of the programme. The
state legislature has passed a numberof Decrees that have had a positive
impact on the programme, including
the following:• Decree 42.199 of April 7, 2003
officially set up the State Committee
for Early Child Holistic Development(CEDIPI).
• Decree 42.200 of April 7, 2003
officially announced a “Baby’s Day”
(November 23) and a “Baby’s Week”
in the state of Rio Grande do Sul,during which different activities and an
International Convention on ECCD are
held.
• Regulation 15/2003 of April 7,
2003 officially set up the programmeand established financial incentives(allocated monthly) for each home
visitor channelled through themunicipalities. Two later Regulations
have increased the incentive (toR$400,000 or US$208).
In July 2006, the State Governor
tabled a law that was approved by
all parliamentarians in the House of
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Engaging the private and public sectors in Brazil: A multisectoral approach to ECCD

Partnerships between
private sector and local
public authorities facilitatedby international cooperation
agencies contribute tosustainability and scaling up efforts

Representatives to officially adopt PIM
as state policy (Law 12.544 backdated
from July 4, 2006). Rio Grande do
Sul is the first state in Brazil to passsuch a law. PIM, as a pioneeringand successful ECCD programme,
has gained official interest from
Brazil’s federal government and fromother states and municipalities, aswell as from private institutions andfoundations.

Coordinating approaches
The two programmes complement
each other. The Millennium Fundfor Early Childhood is focused on
raising adequate resources for
ECCD; PIM is aimed at developinga model programme and, in theprocess, developing a positive policy
climate and institutional structuresat the municipal and state levels
to implement the programme.
The overlap between these two
programmes has enabled them toincrease their impact at the national,
state, and local levels. Although theinitial focus of the programmes has
been on the states of Rio Grande do
Sul and Santa Catarina, their impact
is now spreading to other states aswell as coming to the attention ofother countries. Many other states are
now considering adopting the policies
developed as a result of PIM as well as
the concept of a Millennium Fund for
Early Childhood.
By coordinating approaches acrossdifferent sectors, both the state

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

government and the private sector
have seen the benefits of their
particular initiatives spread far
beyond the specific areas they were
engaging in, either through directinterventions or through mobilisingresources and political will. The
public awareness campaigns thatformed an integral aspect of bothprogrammes complemented eachother and increased the momentum
behind ECCD, leading to an increasein support from the private sector
and to greater interest by the federal
government and other states in Brazil.

Lessons learned• The support provided byinternational multilateral agencies isvital when launching development
and partnership programmes acrossdifferent areas and sectors.
• Collaborative efforts to promote
ECCD have proved to be more
effective than individual ones. It is
worth investing in new (coordinated)management approaches in the public
sector, such as round-table decision
making on an intersectoral basis, andin partnership with civil society and theprivate sector.
• Reciprocal exchange and learning
between the state and municipal
authorities challenges the traditional
top-down relationship between stateand local governments and increasesorganisational learning at both levels.
• The use of academic research indifferent areas (e.g., neuroscience,
psychology, education, infant andmaternal health) has proved to be an
efficient source of information that
legitimises the work and increases the
support for ECCD.
• The partnership between the private
sector and public authorities at the
local level (which is facilitated byinternational cooperation agencies)
provides the basis for assuring that

the ECCD initiatives and programmes
are sustainable and can be scaled up
regionally and nationally.

Next steps• PIM is to be implemented in othermunicipalities in both Rio Grande do
Sul and other states, in partnershipwith public authorities and with thesupport of private institutions andfoundations.
• The development andimplementation of a new programme,
PIM-DIVERSITY, aims to evaluate,
adapt, and design specific PIM
activities and resources for Quilombo(Afro-Brazilian) and Indigenous
communities.
• The Brazilian Millennium Fund for
Early Childhood aims to expand its
presence and activities to include otherstates and to increase its partnership
base.
UNESCO has been formally working
in Brazil since 1964. However, it was
only in 1992 following the Jomtien
Conference (Thailand, 1991) that
UNESCO began to work more closelywith Brazil’s Ministry of Education.
From then on, UNESCO consolidated
its presence throughout the country,
mobilising its technical competence
to support projects on education andother issues (e.g., natural and social
sciences, culture, communication,and information). UNESCO’s Brasilia
Office works to support the efforts ofBrazilian authorities (federal, state, andmunicipal) to develop and implement
effective programmes to address issues
such as ECCD.
For more information, contact:
Alessandra Schneider
Focal Point for ECCE – UNESCO
Brasilia Office/Brazil
Coordinator of UNESCO Antenna
Office in Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil
E-mail:alessandra.schneider@unesco

53

54

Activities of the CG Secretariat
The impacts of climate change on young children
and implications for programming in early childhood
In addition to focusing on priority
areas including young children andEmergencies, HIV/AIDS, Costing and
Financing and Leadership, the CG
has convened a new Working Groupon the Impact of Climate Change on
Young Children as result of the CG’s
2007 Annual Consultation.
The theme of the Annual Meeting,
16th-18th October, hosted thisyear by UNICEF, UNESCO and theGovernment of Chile, was to identify
the impacts of climate change on
young children and the implications
for ECCD programming. A dayof presentations, discussion, andaction planning was designed byLeon Charles 1, presented and led by
Leonard Nurse 2, and facilitated bySian Williams 3. In the week preceding
the meeting the award of the Nobel
Peace Prize to the Inter-Governmental
Panel on Climate Change provided
additional gravitas both to the content
and to the leadership by Leonard
Nurse at the meeting.
The scientific evidence of the impactsof climate change was summarised asfollows:• Climate change is already occurring,and is accelerating.
•	The impacts are already evident andwill become even more evident within
the next 10-40 years.
• Climate change can no longer be
regarded simply as an “environmental

problem.” It is a human development
issue that threatens to undermine theglobal socioeconomic system.
• Children on all continents and in all
nations, regions, communities, andgroups will be affected, but some will
be worse off than others.
•	The changes we are witnessing arelargely human-induced, and we cando something about them.
• Climate change is a global challengethat cannot be tackled successfully
unless there is a commitment by all
nations to participate in a mannerthat is consistent with their historiccontribution to the problem and theirrespective capabilities to respond(access to financial resources andtechnology).
The cost of tackling climate change isaffordable and will cost an average of
0.12% of annual global GDP in the
period up to 2030 (IPCC). These costs
are significantly lower than the costof the damage that will result from
unmitigated climate change (Stern
Review of the Economics of Climate
Change, 31 January 2006, Cambridge
University Press, UK).
The presentations identified the key
impacts, region by region, including
the increased destructiveness, intensityand duration of natural disasters,
water shortage, food insecurity, poor
sanitation, and health and the major
consequences of these impacts forthe acceleration of migration, conflict,poverty, and social and economic
instability. Most sobering of all was
the evidence that, even if greenhousegas emissions were stabilised atcurrent levels, climate change willcontinue for the next 100 years due tothe level of emissions already present
in the atmosphere.
Having considered the presentations
made by Leonard Nurse on thescientific evidence for climatechange and the impacts onchildren participants in the Annual
Consultation discussed in breakout groups the implications
for programming in four key
areas: advocacy, networking,re-programming, and childparticipation.
The declaration (http://www.
ecdgroup.com/climatechange.
asp) drafted for comment andsubsequently developed further in thelast plenary session serves to clarify
our commitment as CG partners
raising awareness and to urging
governments to take action.
In summary, five main areas emerged
for strategic intervention in what
we came to describe as a process of‘re-programming,’ by which we mean
the adjustment—radical or otherwise—to what we currently do in ECCD
programming that accompanies aparadigm shift, the awareness of a
new dimension through which toLeon Charles is Chair, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex 1 parties
to the Kyoto Protocol, 2007, and Development Consultant on Early Childhood Development in the Caribbean.

1

Leonard Nurse is Member of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a lead author on each of the four global assessments of the
impact of climate change including the recent 2007 report, and Senior Lecturer on the Graduate Programme in Climate Change, Centre for Resource
Management and Environmental Studies, University of the West Indies.

2

Sian Williams is Caribbean Early Childhood Development Adviser, UNICEF, and Member of the Executive Board of the Consultative Group on Early
Childhood Care and Development, 2005-2007.

3

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

CG SECRETARIAT REPORT

understand a changed reality. These
five main areas are:
1. Children born today must
participate and learn to act in theirown interests as they grow into
adulthood into a world impacted byclimate change. Children have a rightto know what kind of world they are
growing up in, what is changing it andhow. They need the kind of conceptual
skills, understandings and life skills
to deal with the fast-changing reality
and to act on it. Existing strategies toensure learning-by-doing, to introduce
practical skills and strategies andknowledge into the curriculum, mustbe accelerated based on the core
principle that children must be enabled
to participate.
2. Anticipation of climate change
effects has become a criticaldriver in the way we think aboutprogramming and what we
prioritise. Re-programming across thework undertaken in support of health(also echoed in the Policy Statementof the Committee on Environmental
Health of the American Academyof Pediatrics Global Climate Change
and Children’s Health, 29 October2007), water and sanitation, education
development, and disaster risk
reduction and emergencies is needed
to ensure that climate change effects
are anticipated and that strategies aredeveloped for coping, adjusting, andpreventing further impacts.
3. Subregional programming isessential to build response andplanning capacity across countries.
Climate change effects such as
those caused by intense hurricanes
can reduce in a matter of hours an
emerging middle-income country
into an aid-dependent country witha negative growth rate. We cannot
predict which countries will be mostaffected and therefore we need to

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

sustain active cooperation agreements
in all countries to strengthen intraregional collaboration and mutual
support.
4. Strategic inter-agency
partnerships need to be forgedwith climate change scientists
and environmental agencies. Eachcountry and subregion needs to workwith the IPCC scientists, UNEP, andnational agencies to project adaptationand mitigation measures required andto consider programming requirements.
Furthermore, there needs to be afundamental questioning leading to the
exploration of different paradigms forthe development of societies likely to
be not only impacted but also changed
in functioning by climate change.
5. Advocacy. Advocacy interventions
with governments have to now address
the need to respond to the causes
and impacts of climate change aspart of the process of improving thesituation of children. This will entail
highlighting the need for deep cuts inglobal greenhouse gas emissions andthe need for climate change adaptation
strategies to be included in nationalsustainable development and poverty
reduction programming.

What kind of strategic interventions
can we make in ECCD programming?
Initial ideas include:• Dedicate technical expertise
to develop guidelines forthe re-programming of existing
programmes to reflect anticipationof climate change impacts and toprogramme for their consequences forvery young children. The World Bankis already doing programme relevant
climate sensitivity analysis across its
entire development portofolio and it
may be possible to learn from theirexperiences in this regard.

• Integrate a climate change
dimension to situational analyses
to raise the fundamental questions
that need to be addressed forindividual countries and the options
for addressing them. This is critical for
focusing attention on the youngest
children.
• Provide leadership for an interagency report on Climate Change
Impacts and Consequences for Children
Born in the Next 5 Years: What Needs
to Be Done in collaboration with IPCC.
This can build on the work set out
in the UNDP Human Development
Report 2007/8 on the impact of climatechange (to be published 27 November2007).
• Advocate for urgent
implementation of child-centeredand child-participatory learning
strategies in early childhood to effectthe attitudinal and behavioural changes
needed to ensure the survival anddevelopment of the next generation.
• Urge governments to implement
IMMEDIATELY relevant adaptation,
mitigation, and reduction measures,consistent with each country’s
contribution to the threat of global
warming and capacity to respond.
• Establish mechanisms forstrengthening inter-country cooperationand mutual support, making young
children visible in strategic planningand implementation.
• BUILD AWARENESS. EDUCATETHE PUBLIC and key stakeholders
about the potential impact of climatechange on young children and thekinds of responses that will be needed.
For more information on
background, presentations by
Leonard Nurse, and concrete action
points, see http://www.ecdgroup.
com/climatechange.asp

55

56 REGIONAL REPORTS
At the CG’s 2007 Annual

Strengthening regional capacity:
ECD in the Caribbean Region• A preponderance of small,undercapitalised operators

chairs the Regional ECD Working Groupto coordinate activity at the regional
level. Twelve member organisations
participate, including international
development partners, regionalNGOs, and research institutions. The
Working Group meets twice a year
to support ECD capacity building of
the CARICOM Secretariat in advocacy,
policy formulation, strategic planning,monitoring and evaluation, andcommunity resource mobilisation.
UNESCO and UNICEF are membersof the group and support theparticipation of the regional NGOs
and research institutions as required
to ensure comprehensive and effective
cooperation.

• Low levels of training among
caregivers

Key actions supported in 2006-08 by
UNESCO and UNICEF include:• Absence of national standards• Development of guidelines for quality
ECD policy and standards

In collaboration with UNESCO, and withsupport from UNICEF and the InterAmerican and Caribbean Development
Banks, the Caribbean Community andCommon Market (CARICOM) Secretariat
initiated a process to review progressin early childhood policy developmentin the region. Research in fourteen
Caribbean countries for Education for
All: Global Monitoring Report on Early
Childhood Care and Education found:• A lack of services for children,
particularly for those under 3 years old• Weak licensing, certification, andmonitoring systems• Varying standards of care and quality• Absence of sector-wide governanceat the national level, including
national plans, policies, or regulatory
mechanisms• 87% of services in the region were
provided by community organisations,churches, and private operators.

Caribbean forum on ECD
In March 2006, seventy participantsfrom seventeen countries across theregion and from nine regional andinternational organisations attended the
Caribbean Early Childhood Development(ECD) Forum in Kingston. The Forumrecommended key regional strategies
to address ECD as a development
priority in the effort to reduce poverty
and crime and to promote integrated
human and social development. These
included a number of coordination
mechanisms and partnerships. For
example, the CARICOM Secretariat• Development of indicators to monitor
the performance of the ECD sector

Development of guidelines
A regional workshop was held in
Antigua in September 2006. The
twenty participating countries reviewed
existing ECD standards within the
broader framework of policies andregulatory systems being establishedat national level. The workshop
resulted in the drafting of guidelines
to assist CARICOM states to develop
comprehensive policy, minimum
standards, and regulatory frameworks
for ECD services. Consultation took
place with member states, throughintersectoral committees headedby ministries of education, on theacceptability and utility of the guidelines
prior to their adoption by CARICOM.
The guidelines will be published in
2008.

Consultation, the 4 Cornerstones
provided a useful framework forregional updates and discussions.

Development of quality
indicators
Access to data was identified as a critical constraint to providing a full profile
of ECD at the national level. A project
was prepared to assist countries to test
and pilot data collection mechanisms onan agreed set of indicators to monitor
the performance of the early childhood
sector. A pilot project in three countries will test the feasibility and utilityof the proposed indicators and identify
and develop the modalities that will be
required for effective implementation at
the country level. Key actions for 2008
will include capacity building of earlychildhood coordinators in the analysis
and use of data for reporting and decision making, policy development, andservice improvement.

Next steps by the Regional
ECD Working GroupKey issues to be addressed throughtechnical assistance and through aseries of guidelines for the CARICOMSecretariat and member states include:• implementation of standards• establishment of monitoring systems• development of national financing
mechanisms and investment strategies• establishment of organisational
structures for governance and support
in ECD sectors.
Presented by UNICEF and UNESCO
on behalf of CARICOM ECD Working
Group initiatives in the Caribbean
region.
For more information, contact:
Sian Williams, Caribbean ECD
Advisor, UNICEF
E-mail: sgwilliams@unicef.org
Paolo Fontani, Education Specialist,
UNESCO, Kingston Office, Caribbean
E-mail: p.fontani@unesco.org
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

REGIONAL REPORT: Latin American NetworK

Report: Latin American Networkof The Consultative Group on ECCD
The Latin American Network of theConsultative Group on ECCD meets
every three to four years to identify
ECCD priorities in the region. The
Fourth Meeting of the Network washeld in Panama June 27-29, 2006.
At this meeting, representatives ofinternational organisations, worldwide
networks, universities, governmental
and non-governmental organisations,and other ECCD stakeholders in
Latin America gathered for threedays of workshops that opened thepossibility of collaborative actions tostrengthen ECCD and affect public
policy processes in Latin America.
National and local experiences from
Brazil, Nicaragua, Chile, Colombia,
and Guatemala provided an overview
of the situation of children andfamilies in the region. The workshops
were developed from four importantcomponents:• Conditions for the formulation andhigh-priority development of ECCD
policies.
• Main subjects regarding earlychildhood.
• Processes in the construction of
public policies.
• Development of human resources.
The meeting allowed an interchangeof experiences, knowledge acquisition,and encounters with actions that are
happening in the region regarding
public policy development.
When the Consultative Groupdeveloped/launched the
4 Cornerstones to Secure a Strong
Foundation for Young Children
in October 2006, the Technical
Secretariat of the Centro Internacionalde Educación y Desarrollo Humano
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29(CINDE) adapted the Latin American
Network’s working plan, developed at
the Panama meeting, to reflect them.
The working plan is even broader,
however, and aims to strengthen
links between education, health,nutrition, protection, and children’s
participation.
The framework defined at the Panama
meeting is outlined below, and links
to the 4 Cornerstones are highlighted.

The Latin American
Network’s Working Plan
The Network’s highest priority until
2009, which relates to Cornerstone
4, is to support regional organisations
and countries in Latin America in thedesign and implementation of nationaland subnational ECCD policies.

Cornerstone 4: Include earlychildhood in policies

States (OAS), and the Latin American
Network for Children’s Rights.
• Translation of key materials (e.g.,
The Coordinators’ Notebook advocacy
issue, no. 27, 2003, Emily VargasBarón´s book Planning Policies for
Early Childhood Development:
Guidelines for Action).
• Publication of Panorama
Latinoamericano de la Primera Infancia(Latin American ECCD Overview), an
electronic publication of the networkby country (Peru and Brazil have been
published; the Dominican Republic,
Honduras, Guatemala, and Cuba arein preparation).
• Publication of Creciendo Unidos(Growing Together) and Conexion
Niñez (Children’s Connection), both ofwhich focus on advocacy.

• Support for local (subnational/
municipal) processes, including theCentral American Mayors’ Initiative,
Honduras; rights and acts in Colombia(official budgetary monitoring); local
experiences of preschool education inborder regions with UNESCO Ecuador
and Colombia; and programmes suchas Primeira Infância Melhor (PIM) in
Rio Grande do Sul.

• Networking with our regional
partners, including the World Forumon ECCD, the World Organisation for
Early Childhood Education/Organistion
Mondiale pour L’Education Préscolaire(OMEP), the Latin American and
Caribbean Network for Children’s
Rights, the Global Campaign, Brazil
Zero to Three, and the ECCD group of
MERCOSUR’s education coordination
body. (MERCOSUR is SouthAmerica’s leading trading bloc. Knownas “the Common Market of theSouth,” it aims to bring about the freemovement of goods, capital, services,and people among its member states.
It has been likened to the European
Union, but with an area of 12 million
square kilometres, it is four times as
big.)• Promotion of and participation inregional events of the Network itself
and of other organisations such as
UNICEF, Organisation of American• Dissemination of quality researchsuch as UNESCO reports and theevaluation of quality of services
conducted in Mexico.

Ongoing and/or planned activities
include:• Support to national stakeholders
and regional organisations in
Guatemala, the Dominican Republic,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru,
and Brazil.

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58 REGIONAL REPORT: Latin American Network

Cornerstone 3: Improve primaryschool quality• Promoting monitoring and evaluationof parents’ competencies.

Ongoing and/or planned activities
include:• Reviewing growth and development
scales.

• Promotion of and participation in thedevelopment of simulation softwareto estimate the cost of basic quality
education (e.g., by Save the Children
Foundation UK in Peru, Brazil, andColombia).

Strengthening links with health,nutrition, and protection specialists
and organisations• Helping to collect and consolidate
existing and new data on public
expenditures.
• Promoting and disseminating
partners’ experiences linking ECCD andbasic education programmes across theregion.
• Promoting and disseminating
research on teacher training, such as
the Chilean study of public and private
training programmes.

Efforts were made at the Panama
Network meeting to include theparticipation of health, nutrition,and social agency partners such as
PAHO (Latin American Center for
Perinathology), INCAP (Central-America
and Panama Nutrition Centre), andFLACSO (Latin American Faculty ofSocial Sciences). Actions planned by
the Network that relate to Cornerstone
1: Start at the Beginning, include thefollowing:• Translating materials such as the
UNICEF Toolkit.

• Promoting as part of the school
readiness and transitioning programme
the use of assessment/evaluation
instruments to support students’transitioning to school.

• Training Network members and theirpartners.

Cornerstone 2: Get ready for success• Promoting special issues such as
articulation and readiness, children’s
participation, and disabilities.

Ongoing and/or planned activities
include:• Promoting programmes tostrengthen parents’ involvement andcompetencies.

• Promoting the training of young
ECCD researchers as well as provisionof scholarship funds for research.

• Translating key publications andmaterials on ECCD, along with signingan agreement with the Centre de

Excellence of Montreal University
to translate the ECCD Virtual
Encyclopaedia into Spanish.
• Translating into English Latin
American research reports andtheoretical papers as part of theEncyclopaedia, as well as documentsfrom practitioners in a new section,“Voices from the Field.”• Working with World Forum national
representatives for Latin America totranslate the ExchangeEveryDay into
Spanish, Portuguese, and probably
French.

Challenges ahead• Continue advocating for reductionof the gaps between theory, publicdeclarations, and practice.
• Promote health, nutrition, protection,and education links within andbetween ECCD programmes.
• Prioritise research and innovations tostrengthen and expand 0-3 initiatives/
programmes as part of the early lifecycle process (linked to preschool
education).
• Expand the exchange of regional
experiences and research on teachers’
and caregivers’ initial and ongoingtraining as well as technical assistanceand monitoring systems.

Peru: UNICEF/Walter Silver• Strengthen the exchange of andsupport for cross-country experiences
on financing, costing, and private
sector involvement.
• Share experiences on national andlocal regulations, standards, indicators,
and developmental scales.
• Share experiences on alternatives
to organise institutional structures todevelop policies and delivery systems ina decentralisation process.
For more information, contact:
Alejandro Acosta, Regional Director,
CINDE Technical Secretariat
E-mail: aacosta@cinde.org.co

Promoting programmes to strengthen parent involvement and competencies.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

REGIONAL REPORT: Open Society Institute

Recent developments in CEE/CIS: Early Childhood
Programme of the Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute’s (OSI)
Early Childhood Programme focuses
on expanding access to quality earlychildhood development, with special
attention to minorities, children
with disabilities, and children living
in poverty. OSI, a private operating
and grantmaking foundation, aims
to shape public policy to promote
democratic governance, human rights,
and economic, legal, and social reform.
Working in thirty-four countries, the
Early Childhood Programme supports
OSI’s mission through an agenda
based on: (1) increasing humandevelopment potential througheffective early interventions in the livesof the youngest and most vulnerable
children and their families; (2) holding
governments accountable for theircommitments to young children
and families; and (3) promoting thedevelopment of a vibrant civil society
by fostering children’s participation
skills and critical thinking, engaging
parents and communities to advocate
on behalf of their children, andsupporting a strong early childhood
sector.

Our flagship initiative inCentral Eastern Europe/
Commonwealth of
Independent States(CEE/CIS): Step by Step
Our flagship initiative is the Step by
Step Programme, which began in 1994
in the CEE/CIS region as a response
to declining social supports for young
children and their families. Designed
for a region with a deep pedagogicalhistory and a post-communist legacyof widespread teacher-centredpreschools, the initiative aimed to
introduce child-centredness and

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

community engagement into strongly
entrenched national preschool andprimary education systems. Over
time it emphasised development of
national NGOs and institutions, formal
evaluation of pilot projects, andthen concerted advocacy to reform
early childhood policies. Programme
models include centre-based services
in crèches, preschools, and schools forchildren from birth to age 10, as wellas parenting initiatives and training
sessions that focus on inclusion andsocial justice. OSI continues to provide
significant support to twenty-nine
Step by Step NGOs and their regional
network, the International Step by Step
Association (ISSA).

Extending our activities
to Asia, Africa, and the
Middle East
While continuing to enhance ourwork in CEE/CIS, we are extending
our activities to three regions: Asia,
Africa, and the Middle East. Our
holistic and interdisciplinary approachto support children from birth includes
working with a wide group of
education, social service, and healthand welfare providers; communities;
families; and children themselves.
In expanding to new regions, wework with local partners to develop
the most contextually appropriate
solutions. In 2007, we began towork in Bangladesh and Liberia, as
well as with Palestinian citizens ofIsrael. In Bangladesh, OSI and the
Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee (BRAC) University
have developed a postgraduate
programme in child development.
In Liberia, OSI is partnering with the
Ministry of Education to develop asituation analysis that will inform
ECD policy planning and programme
development. Work with thePalestinian citizens of Israel will
focus on the development of qualitypreschool standards. Plans for 2008
include an early literacy project forfamilies living on the Thai border of
Burma.

An agenda for advocacy,
policy planning, andaccountability
The Consultative Group’s 4
Cornerstones provide an importantorganising framework for our advocacy
efforts. OSI joins international
networks of donors, practitioners,
and researchers to advocate for:• Increasing international investments
in quality ECD.
• Extending the range of earlychildhood programme options
available.
• Ensuring access for minority children
to high quality ECD programmesthat respect and reflect their cultural
diversity.
• Supporting the rights of children
with disabilities to inclusive education.
OSI’s Early Childhood Programme
engages in the development of
national early childhood policies
in accordance with its mission ofextending quality services to children
most at risk. This includes leveraging
funding for ECD through the
Education for All Fast Track Initiative(FTI) and other development bankmechanisms, capacity building ofpolicymakers, preparation of policy
recommendations, and policy planning.
Advocacy is particularly important in

59

60 REGIONAL REPORT: Open Society InstituteCentral Asia and the Caucuses, where
expanding access and diversifying
programmes available is necessary
both to reach more children and tomeet local needs.
Our current work in Europe focuseson monitoring and accountabilityof groups that are often excluded
from quality ECD, that is, migrants,
minorities, and marginalised
populations. We are working ona policy analysis of ECD for Romachildren and a review of the placementof children with disabilities into special
education or mainstream education.
For more information, contact:
Sarah Klaus
Director, Early Childhood
Programme
Open Society Foundation
sarah.klaus@osf-eu.org

Divya Lata
Senior Programme Officer,
Early Childhood Programme
Open Society Foundation
divya.lata@osf-eu.org
Michelle Neuman
Senior Programme Officer,
Early Childhood Programme
Open Society Foundation
michelle.neuman@osf-eu.org

REGIONAL REPORT: International Step by Step Association

Report: International Step by Step Association
The International Step by Step
Association (ISSA) is a membershiporganisation that connects
professionals and organisations
working in the field of early childhood
development and education. ISSA
promotes and emphasises equal
access to quality education and care
for all children, especially in the earlyyears of their lives. Established in the
Netherlands in 1999, ISSA’s network
now stretches across the globe fromCentral and Eastern Europe to Central
Asia, Asia, and the Americas.
While ISSA offers general
membership and information sharing
to all interested individuals andorganisations, its core members are
the thirty NGOs, located primarily inCentral Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union, that implement the Stepby Step Programme initiated by theOpen Society Institute (OSI) in 1994.
Within this network, ISSA supports
a wide array of programmes thatcollectively provide a comprehensive
set of educational services, as wellas advocacy tools to positively
influence policy reform for children
and their families. ISSA receives
generous financial support from OSI,and over the years it has developed
close cooperation with OSI in several
programme areas.
As a partner of the Consultative
Group on Early Childhood Care andDevelopment, ISSA is committed to
the Education for All and Millennium
Development Goals. ISSA’s own
principles, based on democraticvalues, child-centred approaches toteaching, parental and community
involvement in children’s development
and education, and a commitment
to diversity and inclusion, are closelyaligned with the Consultative Group’s
4 Cornerstones to Secure a Strong
Foundation for Young Children.

Cornerstone 1:
Start at the beginning
ISSA’S Early Childhood
Education (ECE) Programmes
ISSA is firmly committed to improving
care and educational services foryoung children in its core membershipcountries. Activities are targeted andimplemented both inside the formal
educational sector, in schools andinstitutions, and outside the formal
system in cooperation with local

communities. ISSA’s member
organisations provide training
to caregivers, teachers, school
administrators, parents, educational
authorities, and other representativesof the community at local, regional,
and national levels.

Quality Early Education Programme
Through its Quality Early Education
Programme, ISSA provides
professional development support
to educators working in infant/toddler programmes, preschools,
and kindergartens through training,
mentoring, and the developmentof educational resources that stressdevelopmentally appropriate practice,holistic child development, and active
family participation. In recent years,
ISSA Pedagogical Standards havebeen introduced. The Standards
are a network-developed tool,
based on principles of child-centred
teaching, which define quality inteaching practices and the classroom
environment. They offer a uniqueapproach and an integrated set ofmaterials to support teachers’ selfassessment, mentoring, assessment,
and certification within the network.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

REGIONAL REPORT: International Step by Step Association

The Standards are available foradaptation and implementation in
new contexts.

Disability and Education for Social
Justice Programmes
ISSA programmes pay special attention
to children from ethnic minorities,
children with disabilities, and children
living in remote areas or in poverty. To
promote access to quality education,
ISSA has developed its Educationfor Social Justice Programme, which
provides training to a variety oftarget audiences in social justice,multicultural, and bilingual education.
The Disability Programme, developed
and managed in cooperation with OSI,
focuses on the inclusion of children
with disabilities into mainstream
classrooms. The Disability Programmeenhances teachers’ professional
capacity and advocates for the rightsof children with disabilities and theirfamilies. Several ISSA projects on
inclusion have received EU funding.

Parent and Community-Based
Programmes
Recognising that many children are not
involved in formal preschool education,
ISSA, together with OSI, has developed
the Parent and Community-Based ECD
Programme. This programme offers
user-friendly materials, activities forparents and children, and modules forfacilitators from the local community
to support families in their effort topromote their children’s development
and education. Uniquely, it integrates
child development, early stimulation,and parenting information into
prenatal, early health, and education
services.

Cornerstone 2:
Get ready for success
Supporting access to preschool
education
Many ISSA network members havebeen active in providing access to and
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

advocating for preschool programmes
for children from ethnic minorities(with an emphasis on the Romani
minority), children with disabilities, andchildren living in remote areas or inpoverty. As a result of ISSA members’
participation in OSI’s Roma Education
Initiative, over two thousand Romani
children, who otherwise would nothave had the opportunity, gained
access to preschool programmes.
ISSA and OSI continue to work
closely together on developing andimplementing programmes thatemphasise equal access for all.
ISSA, OSI, the UNICEF Regional
Office (CEE/CIS), and the Instituteof Education in London jointly
organised a study tour to the UK in
November 2007. Participants included
governmental representatives, UNICEF
education officers, and representativesof ISSA’s core members. The tour
was intended to strengthen country
level capacity to advocate for, plan,and implement quality programmes
for young children, especially thosepertaining to children’s readiness forentering primary school.

Cornerstone 3: Improveprimary school quality
Promoting quality throughpedagogical standards
ISSA and its members continue tobuild upon the success of OSI’s Stepby Step Programme in Central andEastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union. Professional development
programmes and primary school level
methodology have been recognised
and included in the official list ofservices by several ministries of
education in the region. As with thepreschool/kindergarten programmes, in
implementing the Step by Step primaryschool programme, ISSA is guided by
the belief in child-centred, interactive
pedagogy that promotes active
participation, critical thinking, and lifelong learning habits and skills from anearly age. ISSA Pedagogical Standards
help ensure quality and focus onteachers’ ability to implement wellplanned, developmentally appropriate,reflective practice; demonstrate respectfor diversity; and promote meaningful
family participation.

Cornerstone 4: Including
early childhood in policies
ISSA’S advocacy agenda
ISSA campaigns for effective policies
and forges links with government
agencies and internationalorganisations to ensure that successful
approaches and programmes
have policy impact or become
mainstreamed. In October 2006,
ISSA, the Roma Education Fund (REF),
and the European Early Childhood
Research Association (EECERA) jointly
submitted an amicus brief to theEuropean Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg in reference to the case
D.H. and others v. the Czech Republic.
This brief emphasised that appropriate
and effective assessment practices
need to include the use of multiple
tests/pieces of evidence, contributions
from multiple perspectives anddisciplines, and the taking into accountof children’s developmental, ethnic,
cultural, and linguistic diversity.
One of ISSA’s main functions, building
capacity among its members, including
the capacity to effectively advocate
for including early childhood inpolicies, has been realised througha partnership with the World Forum
Foundation (WFF). ISSA supports theparticipation of eight representativesof its core members in the WFF’s
Global Leaders for Young Children
Programme, which aims to improve
life chances for young children by
developing early childhood leaders.
ISSA uses its annual conference andother events to promote its advocacy
agenda. ISSA hosted the 2007 EECERA
Conference, “Exploring Vygotsky’s

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62 REGIONAL REPORT: International Step by Step Association

Ideas: Crossing Borders,” in Prague
from August 29 to September 1, 2007.
The event provided a rare opportunity
for researchers and practitioners
from East and West to engage in a
dialogue exploring convergences anddivergences in the understanding andapplication of Vygotsky’s work topolicy, research, and practice today.
The 2008 ISSA Conference, “Active

Citizenship: Democratic Practices in
Education,” organised jointly with theWFF, will explore the understanding of
democracy in the early years and will
underline the importance of advocacy
for democratic practices in ECE. Panels
will look at what the promotion of
democracy means for practice and for
advocacy/policy, highlighting global
and regional advocacy priorities. The

2008 Conference is scheduled for
October 9-12, 2008 in Budapest.
For more information, contact:
Liana Ghent
Executive Director
International Step by Step
Association
E-mail: lghent@issa.nl
Website: http://www.issa.nl

REGIONAL REPORT: ADEA Working Group on ECD

Report: ADEA Working Group on ECD
The Association for the Developmentof Education in Africa’s Working
Group on ECD (WGECD/ ADEA),
established in 1993, has been
operational as a network since 1997.
Its aim is to influence policy around thedevelopment of the young child andthereby contribute to expanding andimproving sustainable and appropriate
ECD provision in Africa. Its overall
objective is to work as a catalyst andfacilitator in the Sub-Saharan Africa
region to promote a coherent andcoordinated response to the challenges
facing ECD in that part of the world.
Much progress has been madeoverall in Africa since 1997. Several
African countries have developed ECD
policies and implemented a numberof effective programmes with donor
and international support. With theincreasing realisation that cost-effective
ECD interventions can reduce thelong-term costs of not investing in
ECD, there is a challenge to continue
to work towards increasing access toquality ECD interventions, especially by
the most vulnerable.
The 2007 Global Monitoring Report,
Strong Foundations: Early Childhood
Care and Education (summarisedin this issue of The Coordinators’
Notebook), highlighted the fact thatmillions of children in Sub-SaharanAfrica still lack access to the careprogrammes, basic immunisation,clean water, adequate food, and earlystimulation that are needed for theirsurvival, growth, and development.
In response, the WGECD/ADEA has
developed, with its members andpartners, a Regional Framework/Plan of
Action for 2006-10. The Work Plan’s
main strategies include:• Advocacy at the political level,
including heads of state, regional
political bodies in the US, Economic
Community of West African States(ECOWAS), New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (NEPAD)• A regional communication strategy• Networking and partnership building• Capacity building• National policy support
In conjunction with this approach the2008 Work Plan will be structured
around the Consultative Group’s
4 Cornerstones to Secure a Strong
Foundation for Young Children:(1) Start at the beginning; (2) Get
ready for success; (3) Improve primaryschool quality; and (4) Include earlychildhood in policies. In the past
few years, the Working Group has
focused mainly on Cornerstone 4,
supporting countries in the process ofelaborating national policies and policy
frameworks.1 However, other work
undertaken by the Working Group in
past years can also be articulated interms of the 4 Cornerstones.

Cornerstone 1: Start at the beginning
Cornerstone 1 calls for a focus
on parenting programmes andintegrated services. The Working
Group’s Regional Framework, Strategy
4.1 includes support for parental
education and functional adult literacy
programmes, “ensuring ECD contents
and messages.”

Cornerstone 2: Get ready for successCornerstone 2 calls for access toat least two years of ECD services
prior to formal school entry for themost disadvantaged. In relation to
the Sub-Saharan Africa context,
this cornerstone is translated in the
Regional Framework’s Strategy 4.5

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

REGIONAL REPORT: ADEA Working Group on ECD

as “supporting scaling up for IECD
programmes.”

Cornerstone 3: Improve primaryschool quality
Cornerstone 3 calls for increased
investments and a focus on teacher
training, whereas Strategy 4.2 of theWorking Group’s Regional Framework
is to support capacity building at
the national level and to work withpartners on initiatives such as the Early
Childhood Virtual University (ECDVU.
org), African Virtual University, andthe UNESCO initiative of mapping
universities that deliver ECD
programmes by distance, as well
as all African universities delivering
ECD programmes.

Cornerstone 4: Include early childhoodin policies
Three strategies of the Regional
Framework are directly linked toCornerstone 4: Strategy 1—advocacy
for ECD at the political level; Strategy
2—a regional communication strategy
directed at high-level decision makers(in collaboration with the Consultative
Group); and Strategy 5—supporting
multisectoral coordination for ECD.
Strategy 5.1 specifically calls for“supporting the process of national
ECD policy/policy framework, costing
exercises, and planning.”

Framework—networking andpartnership building (in particular,
strengthening the national
networks, facilitating exchanges of
information and experiences); Strategy
4.3—supporting a gender perspectivein ECD objectives and implementation;and Strategy 4.4—supporting HIV/AIDS
prevention and management in ECD
programmes.

An African institutional base
The Working Group has beencoordinated by the Chair of the
WGECD from the Netherlands Ministryof Foreign Affairs, the lead agency
for the WG since 1998. The Chairis currently located in Mozambique,assisted by a consultant basedin Ghana. With the increasing
responsibility of the Working Group as
the lead catalyst for ECD in Africa, andwith the expansion of ECD activities

2006-2010 Regional
Framework/Plan of Action• Political Advocacy• Development of a Regional
Communication Strategy• Networking and Partnership
Building

Future work of WGECD/ADEA willreinforce the assets and results of thisjoint work at national and regional
levels.

• Capacity Building

Cross-cutting issues

in the region in the last three years,
it became necessary to engage asecond consultant on a part-time basis.
The team has constituted a “virtual
Secretariat” since 2006.

Other strategies employed by theWorking Group are cross cutting
the ones described above. These
include Strategy 3 of the Regional• National Policy Support

Central in 2008 is the proposedtransfer from the current set-upof the Working Group to an All
Africa network for ECD with theestablishment of an administrative
base in Africa in an agency that
deals with ECD issues and can takeon administrative responsibilities(including dealing with funds). The
Steering Committee has chosen Save
The Children USA in Nairobi for thisrole. To strengthen the WG Steering
Committee and ensure linkages withthe political agenda, it is also proposedthat the next Chair will be UNESCO
Breda, based in Dakar. This would
ensure the political leverage of theWorking Group, as well as coverage ofboth East/Southern and West/Central
Africa and the two major languages,
French and English.

Next steps
The first National Focal Points meetingin summer 2008 will allow us tocontinue the work of the November
2007 WG Steering Committee meetingin adapting the Consultative Group’s
4 Cornerstones to the Sub-SaharanAfrica context, based on national andregional expertise. This coordination
with a global network will assist us inmoving forward.
For more information, contact:
Ms. Stella Etse
WGECD Coordinatorc/o UNICEF – United Nations
Children’s Fund
UNICEF House
4 – 8 Rangoon Close
P.O. Box AN 5051
Accra North, Ghana
E-mail: wgecdafrica@gmail.com
Website: http://www.ecdafrica.com,
http://www.adeanet.org

1 These activities include supporting a costing exercise for Burkina Faso and The Gambia in collaboration with the World Bank and Alain Mingat;

organising a special session on ECD in the 2006 ADEA Biennale on Education in Africa; contributing to the preparation of the 2007 EFA Global
Monitoring Report on ECD; supporting the regional (SSA) launch of the report; publishing a study “Investing in ECD: Benefits, Savings and Financing
Options” (by K. Hyde); and disseminating the report of the Ghana African/International Conference in 2005.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

63

64 REGIONAL REPORT: Advocacy in the Arab Region

Advocacy in the Arab Region
Arab Resource Collective (ARC) is aregional, independent, non-profit
organisation founded in 1988. ARC
works with partners in several Arabcountries, including Lebanon, Palestine,
Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, andSudan.
ARC’s mission is to build on thecapacities of each person and on
people’s experience to develop
knowledge and translate rights
into reality. It takes a holistic andintegrated approach to development,
and practices collective work throughconsultation, networking, andpartnerships.
ARC’s objective is to produce resources,build capacities, and generally
nurture the resource culture in Arabcountries. Working with partners,
ARC contributes to better childhood,
health, education, communication,and community development byproducing reference books (such as the
Arabic edition of “Where There is No
Doctor”), training manuals, newsletters,
and other educational materials, aswell as by convening workshops andtraining programmes to build humanresources.
ARC’s programmes cover:• Early childhood care anddevelopment• Children’s rights• The child-to-child approach• Mental health for a new generation• Youth and healthy living• Disability, special needs, and inclusion• Health for all through primary healthcare, women’s health, and rational useof drugs• Digital solidarity with deprived
communities• Information and communication
technologies for development• Training, learning, andcommunications.
The Early Childhood Care andDevelopment (ECCD) programmeis the largest single programme in
ARC. Over the years it has developed
an effective participatory approachto the development of human andmaterial resources in several Arabcountries. Outputs include a basketof awareness raising materials on theimportance of ECCD, an acclaimed
training manual (Adults and Children
Learning: A Holistic and Integrated
Approach to Early Childhood Care andDevelopment), and a set of longer-term
capacity-building processes with ECCD
networks in three countries.

Advocacy
Advocacy for ECCD is not a common
practice in the Arab region; it isan emerging field for civil society,
NGOs, and ECCD professionals. Asa regional networking NGO rather
than a structured network, ARC does
get involved, when appropriate, in
advocacy initiatives, particularly atregional and international levels.
However, the role it has chosen foritself has been to facilitate collective
work among partner NGOs. The
major focus of such work is on the
production and dissemination ofknowledge in the form of approaches
and resources, and, more recently, on
capacity building. This applies also to
the field of advocacy for ECCD.
Though sociopolitical structures in theregion are varied, they are generally
characterised by distance between
governments/states and citizens, orwhat could be broadly termed “civilsociety.” A common feature is theexistence of national Higher Councils
for Motherhood and Childhood(HCMC). Created as a sort of publicprivate venture, they are generally

structures mandated to manage thefocus on childhood and establish
cooperation between the government
structures and the NGO sector, where
the latter exists in any significant way.
In some contexts, these councils playa positive and synergic role; in others
they operate as a neutralising factor for
independent NGO initiatives.
International instruments have provided
some leverage for NGOs to reclaim the
advocacy ground. As an example, theConvention on the Rights of the Child(CRC), through its regular reporting
system, encourages “alternative”
contributions by civil society. NGOs insome contexts compile and present
their own reports; in others, they join
forces with ministries (namely under
the umbrella of a HCMC) and often
succeed in nurturing reports with adose of professionalism, first-handknowledge of the field, and accurate
assessment. The Education for All(EFA) process, with its insistence on
the elaboration of national policies, isanother point of entry.
Another positive development
generated partly by the dynamics of
the CRC reporting system has been
the emergence in certain countries ofcoalitions of NGOs for the rights of thechild, which have been able to garnersupport for raising awareness andlobbying.
In certain contexts, the injectionof substantial grants (e.g., by theWorld Bank in Egypt and Jordan) or
the intervention of external actors(e.g., the Aga Khan Foundation in
Syria) creates momentum and allows
ECCD professionals in the country toparticipate in influencing and planning,as well as in various aspects ofimplementation.
In most of the above, the focus is on
children in general, often from a rights
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

REGIONAL REPORT: Advocacy in the Arab Region

perspective. Within this context, theearly childhood constituency has had
to elbow its way to generate a specificfocus on ECCD. Progress has been
made, however. Following is a look at
how programmes for young children
in the Arab region relate to theConsultative Group’s 4 Cornerstones
to Secure a Strong Foundation for
Young Children.

Cornerstone 1: Start at the beginning
The need for structured programmes
focusing on child developmentfrom conception to age 3 has been
identified as urgent for a number ofyears. However, such projects arestill rare on the ground. Cooperation
between ECCD and healthprofessionals is only now emerging asa point of entry. One illustration would
be one of the outcomes of the 2006
Early Childhood Development Virtual
University (ECDVU.org) programmein Yemen; at the end of the seminaron leadership and programming, theparticipants in the course invited theMinisters of Social Affairs and Healthand lobbied them to ensure integrationfrom the early years.

Cornerstone 2: Get ready for success
Enrolment in kindergarten is a current
focus of most governments andsocieties in the region, driven by avariety of factors (e.g., conviction,
EFA requirements, external funding).
Although the challenge is colossal(typically, the goal would be growthfrom 10% to 60% by 2015),
momentum has been created.
Advocacy has focused on such issues
as generating resources at the local
level and ensuring quality throughcapacity building and well designed
curricula. An example is the project
adopted by the current two World
Forum Global Leaders in Egypt (fromSave the Children US), who focusedon mobilising resources and adopting
appropriate approaches for increasing
enrolment in one rural district.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

It is also important to note that
community initiatives have been
emerging to provide some forms ofstructured programming to prepare
children for the transition from home
to basic education. An illustration ofthis type of community initiative isthe project of a learner in the ECDVU
course in Yemen, who implemented
such a programme in her village during
the summer break.

Cornerstone 3: Improve primaryschool quality
As in many regions, the problems
linked to transition from ECCD
programmes (where they exist) toprimary schooling have been a great
concern for ECCD professionals in
Arab countries, because of the often
abysmally low quality of the primaryschooling afforded to the mostdeprived social sectors. Though the
problem is talked about profusely,
there is an overall sentiment that very
little can be done about this challenge.
However, initiatives can be pointed
to as illustrative of possible ways
forward. For example, ECCD actors
within Palestinian refugee camps,
which generally are NGOs in Lebanon
and elsewhere, have developed
highly successful ECCD provision.
Cooperation has been gradually
emerging with the schools run by
United Nations Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA), which is the UN
agency mandated to provide support
services, including education, to
Palestinian refugees, to design various
strategies for working on transition,
including training of UNRWA teachers.

Cornerstone 4: Include early childhoodin policies
Work on national policies has received
an active boost in many Arab countries
in recent years, thanks to the external
leverage mentioned above (i.e., EFA,
CRC). For example, a national policy
has been adopted in Jordan, and theprocess has been going on for sometime in Egypt, Syria, and Yemen.

Though such processes have generally
allowed for significant cooperation
engaging the professional ECCD
sector, including NGOs, it has also
encountered significant obstacles andsetbacks in all the contexts.

A State of Permanent Emergency
Although positive signs of movement
are indicated on all of the above
fronts, attention must be drawn
to the growing scope and level of
emergencies in the Arab region.
Conflicts and upheavals have always
existed in the region, but the situation
is now one of permanent emergency
in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan,
and the potential for a worseningof the situation is on everyone’s
minds. This state of emergency goes
far beyond occasional suspension of
normal services. On the one hand, it isproducing a chronic degradation of thereal progress made in years past. On
the other, it requires the allocation oflimited energies and resources to copewith the consequences, to the extent
that we in ARC have started thinkingof the need to introduce strategies tomeet the needs of the young children
and families affected (pretty much
everyone in some contexts) as a key
part of our mainline programming.
This poem by Toufic Zayyad, mayor of
Nazareth in the 1970s, illustrates thereality of life in the region:
The roses had blossomed on the sill of
my window.
And the vine had climbed the stairs
draping them in green.
My house was leaning on a ray of sun,sunbathing.
And I was dreaming of bread inabundance to all people.
That was before they came in a tanksplattered with blood.
For more information, contact:
Youssef Hajjar, Senior Coordinator
Arab Resource Collective
E-mail: arcyh@gn.apc.org
http://www.mawared.org/

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66 REGIONAL REPORT: Asia Regional Network for Early Childhood report

Report: Asia-Pacific Regional

Network for Early Childhood

Several mechanisms exist for
coordination of Early Childhood (EC)professionals globally, including both
the Consultative Group on ECCD and
the World Forum. Professional societies
in early childhood publish journals andhold annual conferences; several ofthese exist in Asia and the Pacific at
the national level. Until now, however,there has yet to be established an
official network of early childhood
professionals in Asia.
During the EC Policy Review workshop
held in Bangkok in July 2007,
participants from nine Asian countries(Pakistan, Nepal, Mongolia, China,
Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Lao
PDR, and Singapore) and representing
government, NGOs, universities,
institutes, and the UN, met to
discuss the possibility of forming an
Asian network of early childhood
professionals. During the workshop,
a self-selected group of participants
met to discuss the preparation of aconcept note to outline the formationof the Asia-Pacific Regional Network
for Early Childhood (ARNEC). The
Network recognises that vast economic
imbalances exist between and withincountries in the Asia-Pacific region, an
area characterised by ethnic, cultural,
linguistic, and topographical diversity.
This diversity is reflected in wide
variations in access to early childhood
services and their quality. Yet, it is felt
a need exists to share good policies
and practices for the benefit of all
countries in the region. This reportsummarises these discussions.
The main purpose of ARNEC is to build
the capacity of ECD organisations andindividuals through development ofa shared vision, mutual cooperation,

sharing knowledge and experiences,and initiating joint efforts.

Objectives
Two main objectives have been
identified:• To share experiences, policies, goodpractices, and documentation between
and among members of the regional
network.
• To build capacity of EC professionals
through regular communication andexchange, workshops and seminars,
and through other activities.
In addition, as complementary to andin support of these core objectives, theNetwork will also:• Support and/or disseminate studies
and multicountry research efforts.
• Carry out advocacy and build
common understanding among EC
professionals, policy makers, andresearchers.
• Build interpersonal andorganisational linkages within theregion.

Membership
Membership in ARNEC is not restricted
to Asia, but is free and open for all
interested individuals. For the time
being, we will not be seeking toestablish institutional or organisational
memberships.
Members will receive regular news
and updates, will be sent and/or haveaccess to a journal or newsletter, andwill be kept informed of events beingorganised in the region.
The target group for the Network is
manyfold. First off, members will bedirect beneficiaries of the Network.

As the Network evolves and maturesand its membership increases, various
committees and thematic groups
will be formed around member
interest, thereby attracting increased
membership. In addition, government
policy makers and key donors will
be an important target group of the
advocacy and research initiatives
carried out through the Network.
Capacity building will directly benefit
EC professionals at various levels and,in the long run, children as well.

Role of Core GroupA Core Group of volunteers including
members from PLAN International
regional offices, UNICEF and UNESCO
regional/national offices, NGOs anduniversities have agreed to work
together through e-mail to carryout specific activities designed to
get ARNEC up and running. Once
the Steering Committee (SC) isestablished, the Core Group will cease
functioning and can be dissolved. It is
hoped, however, that the Core Group
members will remain active in the
EC Resource Network, either within
the SC or as leaders and members ofthe various committees and thematicgroups formed.

Role of Steering Committee
The SC will facilitate the smoothfunctioning of ARNEC. Its main tasks
will be:• Decision making on programmematters.
• Fund raising, including preparationof a work plan and budgetary planning
decisions.
• Policy direction and focus.

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

REGIONAL REPORT: Asia Regional Network for Early Childhood report• Prioritisation of work plan andactivities.
• Oversight of the secretariat andits annual work plan.
• Assistance in managing and/or
coordinating the various thematicgroups and committees.
SC members will number
approximately twelve and must
be based in South or East Asia or
the Pacific. Efforts will be madeto ensure representation from all
subregions, from various professionalroles (e.g., policy maker, researcher,practitioner), and from various typesof organisations (e.g., UN, NGO,
government, university, institute). SC
members will serve a two-year term.

Role of Secretariat
The Secretariat is considered essential
to the smooth running of ARNEC. Thisis a lesson learned by other Networks,
including the Consultative Group.
The key roles of the Secretariat would
include:• Administration of the Network.
• Website maintenance and updates.
• Coordination between various
committees, thematic groups, andinitiatives.
• Overseeing of work plan
implementation and follow-up.
Chemba Raghavan joined the Asia
EC Resource Network Secretariat
in October 2007 on a part-timebasis to support coordination andcommunication of the Network.
Chemba will assist with gathering
ideas on potential member interests,
including what they would like tocontribute to and receive from the

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

The Network recognises that vast economic imbalances exist
between and within countries in the Asia-Pacific region, an area
characterised by ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and topographicaldiversity. This diversity is reflected in wide variations in access toearly childhood services and their quality. Yet, it is felt a needexists to share good policies and practices for the benefit of all
countries in the region.
Network; ensuring that SC members
are identified and connected; initiating
discussions on website design andcompilation of relevant documents;
and preparing for and supporting the
ARNEC SC meeting in February 2008.
On January 7, 2008, Anna Smeby
will join the ARNEC Secretariat teamon a full-time basis. In particular,
Anna will be responsible foradministering ARNEC, including
expanding membership; coordinationof the SC, preparation of the Annual
Workplan, and overseeing work plan
implementation; website maintenanceand updates; and supporting the
preparations for and processes of the
SC meeting, the Global Early Learningand Development Standards (ELDS)
Validation workshop, and the EC
Policy Review workshop, all held in
Bangkok in February 2008.

reviewed by a special body set up by
the SC.
Potential houses that have been
identified include the University ofHong Kong, University of the South
Pacific, Beijing University, East China
Normal University, Regional Training
and Resource Centre (RTRC)—
Singapore, and the Korea Institutefor Child Care and Education, among
others. While the house location may
rotate over time, it is felt that it should
remain at least two to three years in
one location.

Initial activities
While not a detailed work plan, thefollowing activities were identified
during the meeting as areas where theCore Group, followed by the SC andSecretariat, should put their energies
over the following year:

Potential mechanism tohouse the Secretariat• Finalise the Concept Note and makeit an official document.

In the beginning and over the
short term, as the Network is being
established and additional funds andinterest raised, the Secretariat will bebased in Bangkok in one of the officesof the initial funding agencies (UNICEF
EAPRO, UNESCO Bangkok, or Plan
International).

• Map key players in ECD/ECCE in
Asia with whom the Concept Note
can be shared—and through whom
membership and interest can begenerated.

In the long term, a process will
be instituted to select an official“house”—an institute or university
where the Secretariat will be based.
Proposals for hosting the Asia EC
Resource Network Secretariat will be• Prepare a memorandum of
understanding between fundingorganisations willing to provide initialsupport to the Network (UNICEF,UNESCO, PLAN, SCF) for establishingthe initial Secretariat in Bangkok.
• Initiate a coordinated review of
ECCE sections of EFA Mid-Decade
Assessment (MDA) National Reports,

67

68 REGIONAL REPORT: Asia Regional Network for Early Childhood report

CG Updates
Thailand: PLAN Internationalwith Core Group members supporting
the role of the ECCE EFA MDA
Technical Support Group.
• Complete formalisation of ARNEC,
with Secretariat and SC terms ofreference revised, with committees
and thematic groups formed andtheir coordinators chosen, and withmechanisms in place for management
and administration of the Network.
• Disseminate findings of the EC Policy
Review.
• Establish a website for ARNEC.
Prepare modes for exchanges, for
keeping members informed ofevents and activities in the regions,for sharing reports and documents,and for building awareness among
potential partners of ARNEC itself.
• Provide input and feedback to EFA
MDA ECCE Progress Note for Southand East Asia and the Pacific and

For updated regional news
and information on CG areasof focus and Working Groups
including Emergencies, HIV/
AIDS, Costing and Financing
and Leadership, see
http://www.ecdgroup.com

complete review of ECCE sections of
EFA MDA National Reports.
• Initiate efforts to secure funding forthe future, especially support costs
related to shifting the Secretariat tothe future house.
ARNEC will hold its first Steering
Committee meeting in February
2008, bringing together all members
to officially initiate the Network, toagree upon protocols and governanceprocedures, and to finalise the firstannual work plan.
For more information, contact:
Cliff Meyers
UNICEF East Asia and PacificRegional OfficeE-mail: cmeyers@unicef.org
Chemba Raghavan
E-mail: c.raghavan@unescobkk.org
Anna Smeby
E-mail: asmeby@unicef.org
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

International Early Childhood Resources

International Early
Childhood Resources
New Journal—Child Healthand Education
Available online. The current issue isa “Special Issue” focused specificallyon ECD, an extension of The Lancet
series on Child Development. The
articles include some new examples
of successful programs. See: www.
childhealthandeducation.com/articles/
current.htm
How to Avoid the Loss of Potential
in Over 200 Million Young Children
in the Developing World
Patrice Engle, Sally Grantham-McGregor,
Maureen Black, Susan Walker,& Theodore Wachs
Risk Factors and the Development ofCompetence in Children from LowIncome Countries: The Importanceof Social-Emotional Outcomes andMultiple Process Models
Theodore D. Wachs
Integrated Childhood Development
Services in Nicaragua
Aimee Verdisco, Emma NäslundHadley, & Ferdinando Regalia
Early Intervention and Caregiving:
Evidence from the Uganda Nutrition
and Early Childhood Development
Program
Pia Rebello Britto, Patrice Engle, andHarold Alderman

Uganda: Right to Play / Melissa Bedard

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

Africa’s Future, Africa’ s
Challenge: Early Childhood
Care and Development in
Sub-Saharan Africa
Garcia, M., Pence, A., & Evans, J.
[Eds.], 2008
This book draws from views of authors
and watchers of African trends. It
presents the case for investment in
ECD based on new findings fromneuroscience. Trends in ECD fromsociohistorical perspectives—including
the new threats to early childhood
such as HIV/AIDS, the challenges ofcaring for children under 3, and therole of African fathers—are presented
to provide the context of how
households, communities, and the
public sector care for Africa’s children.
Similarly, comparative studies on how
various countries are addressing ECD
policy indicate a variety of approaches
including participatory ECD planningand community-based approaches
that work. This book includes several
results of evaluations on the impact
of programs designed to promotechildren’s care and development invarious countries. As ways forward,
this book also describes financingof early childhood programs andthe approaches being taken towardcapacity building and knowledge
dissemination.
Copies of thisbook may bepurchased throughamazon.com. For
orders of 10 ormore copies ofthis book, pleasecontact Alan Pence(apence@uvic.ca)

Right to Play: Early Child Play
Resources
Targeted at children aged 2-5 years,
Early Child Play promotes holistic
development of the young childusing parallel and cooperative play
activities. Early Child Play concentrates
on building confidence, physicaldexterity, and cooperation. Using thesame five coloured balls and areas ofdevelopment as the Red Ball Child
Play resource, this resource contains
over 65 physical games and activities
that concentrate primarily on physicaldevelopment of the young child.
For more information, see:
http://www.righttoplay.com/
Contact:
Teresa Gonzalez
Director of Program, Monitoringand Evaluation
Right To Play65 Queen St West Thomson Building,Suite 1900
Toronto Ontario M5H 2M5 Canada
416 498-1922 ext 236
E-mail: tgonzalez@righttoplay.com

69

70 calendar

Early Childhood Calendar
See the CG’s online Calendar of Events:
http://www.ecdgroup.com/calendar1.asp
for a list of events in 2008, including:
The Global Campaign for
Education World Assembly
January 22-24, 2008
Sao Paolo, Brazil
ECD in Southern and Eastern
Africa Conference
Feb 18-21, 2008
Arusha, Tanzania
Comparative International
Education Society Annual
Meeting
March 17-21, 2008
New York City, USA‘Action Now, Action How’
International AIDS Conference
Preconference Symposium
August 1-2, 2008
Mexico City, Mexico
XVII International AIDS
Conference
August 3-7, 2008
Mexico City, Mexico
ADEA Working Group on ECD,
National ECD Focal Points
Meeting
September 2008
Nairobi, Kenya

World Forum Global Leaders
Meeting
October 7-8, 2008
Budapest, Hungary
International Step by
Step Association Annual
Conference
October 9-12, 2008
Budapest, Hungary
CG Annual Consultation
October 13-15, 2008
hosted by ISSA
Budapest, Hungary

Special Interest Group on
Early Childhood
March 17-18, 2008
New York City, USA

COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

71

The Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development (CG)is an international consortium dedicated to improving early childhood policy and practice focusing
on young children (pre-birth to 8 years) in disadvantaged circumstances.
Launched in 1984, the CG works
actively to identify gaps, critical issues,and emerging areas of need andinterest related to ECCD for its workin awareness-raising, advocacy, anddissemination, and to seek out new
partners. We believe it is critical topromote a more diverse and creative
range of ECCD activities that linkdifferent sectors, are more inclusive,and better address children’s needs
and circumstances in the context ofthe family and/or community.

Key Objectives• Knowledge Generation and
Dissemination
Contribute to the development of adiverse global knowledge base on
ECCD through the analysis, synthesis,
and dissemination of information
which is accessible and used by a wide
range of actors and stakeholders.

• Communications and Advocacy
Facilitate a broad-based global
understanding of the criticalimportance of ECCD to social
development and poverty reduction
and advocate for improved
investments, policies, and actions to
support the holistic development ofyoung children.

on a particular issue or topic, as well
as offering network news. We try
to provide information on the mostappropriate research, field experiences,and practices to benefit individuals
working with young children andtheir families. We encourage you toshare this information with othernetworks you take part in. Feel free
to copy portions of this Notebook anddisseminate the information to those
who could benefit from it. Please let
us know about any programmes or
efforts benefiting young children andtheir families in which you may be
involved.

• Strengthening Regional Capacity
Strengthen national and regional
capacities to generate and disseminate
knowledge, share information, andadvocate for the support of children’s
overall development.

Coordinators’

Notebook
No. 29, 2007
A publication of the Consultative
Group on Early Childhood Care andDevelopment, published annually.
Editors:
Leslie Prpich
Louise Zimanyi
Louise Curtis
Design/Production:
Joss Maclennan Design,
www.joss.toPrinting: Thistle Printing
Photos: provided by CG partners;
Jean-Luc Ray, Jim Holmes, andRob Buchanan
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29

The CG includes a broad-based
network of UN agencies, multi andbilateral organisations, internationalfoundations and agencies, nationaland regional organisations andnetworks, and academic/educational
institutions. See www.ecdgroup.com/
participation.asp for an updated list.
The CG operates through a Secretariat
overseen by an elected Executive Board
made up of current partners.
The CG, currently housed at Ryerson
University in Toronto, Canada, isjointly supported by the Office ofInternational Affairs and the Facultyof Community Services.
The Coordinators’ Notebook is
produced annually and is one of our
networking tools. Each issue focuses

For more information, contact:
Louise Zimanyi, Director
The Consultative Group on
Early Childhood Care andDevelopment
c/o Ryerson University
350 Victoria Street
Faculty of Community Services
Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3 Canada
Tel: (1) (416) 979-5000 ext. 4801
Fax: (1) (416) 979-5384
info@ecdgroup.com
www.ecdgroup.com
Office:99 Gerrard Street East
Sally Horsfall Eaton Centre forStudies in Comunity Health(5th Floor, SHE 588)
Toronto, Ontario M5B 1G8 Canada

Mongolia: UNICEF/HQ00-1000/Giacomo Pirozzi