Future-Proofing Our World Through Early Childhood Development
Dr. Muhammad Musa, Executive Director of BRAC International
It is no secret that we, as a global community, face numerous, multi-dimensional challenges, whether they be extreme poverty or climate change. In fact, these problems are only set to get worse in the decades to come. Though new initiatives and innovative solutions are bringing us hope, in order to fully address these challenges, we need strong, capable, and compassionate leaders now, and in the future. Leaders whose development we must invest in now. It is more important than ever for the global community to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD).
Exclusion and inequality, which contribute to poverty and injustice, and climate change, which threatens our very existence on Earth, are both caused by the sustained selfish actions of human beings. Those in power and those with resources maintain structures that keep people in marginalization and damage our planet. Though, as a global community, we have begun to take actions to reverse these trends, it is important for us to remember that these challenges will outlive us and will fall upon the next generation to solve. However, if we do not invest in developing the next generation of compassionate global leaders and citizens now, then we will be setting them up to fail.
Science has shown us that the first six years of a child’s life are the most important in terms of their health outcomes and general development. Scientific research has shown us that the connections between neurons in the brain develop in the womb and continue to change and grow up until the age of 6 years old. This means that over 90% of all childhood development happens in the first six years of a child’s life. Our current education systems, however, largely neglect young children despite the opportunity to set young people up for success by intervening at an early age
Globally, more than half of children under the age of 6 have no access to any ECD services. This represents a massive missed opportunity and a massive failure, especially for children living in difficult circumstances and marginalization. The good news is that models exist to reach children in all contexts with quality, targeted, and contextualized early childhood education. For example, BRAC has adapted our PlayLab model - which is tried and tested in Uganda, Tanzania and Liberia and provides high-quality play-based learning for children ages three to five - to a Humanitarian context, serving more than 43,000 Rohingya and host community children in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Unfortunately, the largest hurdle for quality ECD is a lack of global investment. Access to adequate ECD services is too often restricted to those in higher socio-economic brackets, who are able to access quality resources appropriate for specific age groups. It is estimated that $44 billion is needed to properly invest in ECD, while currently less than $0.5 billion is being spent by governments worldwide.
According to UNICEF’s Call to action: Building brains, building futures and Justin Van Fleet, Executive Director of Their World, every government should recognize that 10% of their education budget is needed to support the youngest learners. We had started to see progress in this area with governments slowly increasing their ECD contributions and donor investment in education has increased by 21% over the last 10 years according to the new joint World Bank – UNESCO report, Education Finance Watch (EFW). However, COVID-19 has put all of this progress at risk. The EFW report indicates that two-thirds of low- and lower-middle-income countries have cut their education budgets since the start of the pandemic.
If we really want to tackle the multi-dimensional challenges that face us, working to eradicate extreme poverty, achieve social justice, preserving biodiversity, and mitigate the effects of climate change, we need to come together to advocate on behalf of the next generation. Championing early childhood development, and providing evidence-based examples of its success, will help policymakers understand its importance and invest accordingly.
Not only does ECD encourage an inclusive and equitable society, it means that future generations will be far better equipped to deal with challenges on the horizon. Our leaders of tomorrow need the support of our leaders today.
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