By failing to intervene to support positive growth and development, governments tacitly endorse inequalities. This is certainly true if no special effort is made to assist those who have been discriminated against and if early childhood programmes are available only to those who can afford to pay for them. Investments in early childhood development have been shown to modify inequalities rooted in poverty and social discrimination by giving children from disadvantaged backgrounds a fair start in school and in life. Studies suggest that these children benefit more from early intervention programmes than their more-privileged peers. Reductions in gender inequalities.
All children have a right to develop to their full potential.
Attention to young girls often lags behind attention to boys, beginning and reinforcing a long cycle of discrimination. Gender-linked disparities in attitudes and expectations and in patterns and practices of early care and development need to be examined. There is evidence that early attention to gender can produce changes in the development of the girl child and in the way families perceive the abilities and future of that child. Furthermore, early childhood programmes can also benefit women and older siblings by freeing them from constant child care responsibility so they can learn and seek better employment and earnings. Transmission of the social and moral values that will guide all of us in the future begins in the earliest months of life.