From June 5 to 7, I and around 700 advocates and experts on early childhood gathered in Kathmandu for the Asia Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) conference, hosted by the government of Nepal.
ARNEC is a regional network working to build strong partnerships across sectors, agencies, and institutions to improve early childhood. This year the conference theme was: “Towards achieving the SDGs: what is a successful multisectoral approach to ECD?”, and convened actors from various sectors, such as education, health, and planning.
In parallel to the conference, a policy forum was taking place, led by UNESCO and co-organized with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) of Nepal, UNICEF and ARNEC.
Addressing the needs of young children from different angles
Over three days policymakers, practitioners, and academics came together to advocate for and plan a multisectoral approach in early childhood through education, health and nutrition, responsive care-giving, early learning, and safety and security.
Successful early childhood interventions require inputs and collaboration across these different areas. One of the key challenges is figuring out how to coordinate the multiplicity of actors and who has primary responsibility for providing the different services to young children.
Many of the keynote speakers highlighted the progress that has been made in ECD over the past decade. Most notably the shift in conversation from why early childhood is important to how successful implementation and practice take place.
There is no longer a need to convince policymakers that early childhood is important. Now the conversation needs to focus on what successful practice looks like and how it can be achieved.
Dr. Pia Britto (UNICEF, Chief and Senior Advisor, Early Childhood Development) emphasized this point in her speech: “The case on why ECD is important has never been clearer. We need to move from ‘basecamp’ to higher elevations of ‘how’- especially in achieving outcomes and delivery through political commitment.”
Through the successful case studies of Nepal, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, China, Cambodia, and The Philippines participants walked away with a better understanding of why the focus needs to be on how to implement successful ECD programs and also with examples of successful implementation.
Nepal presented their progress, and their experience demonstrated the importance of involving the planning commission to coordinate a strong, multisectoral early childhood strategy. The strategy needed to include input from multiple ministries and the planning commission helped coordinate their plans, set goals and align work across various ministries and create a costed action plan.
Giving policymakers the tools to move from policy to action
To help achieve the goal of moving from why to how, a 2-day policy forum led by UNESCO simultaneously for ministry representatives, focused on shifting from policy to action. The forum brought together around 30 government representatives from the region to discuss progress, showcase multi-sectoral approaches, goals, and actions moving forward.
The forum provided ministry representatives with a space where they could hear about ECD programs throughout the region and learn about the different steps to successful implementation.
Representatives also had the chance to discuss challenges they face in their respective contexts, and brainstorm ways to overcome these challenges. By the end of the forum representatives walked away with action steps and goals for the next year. This included a focus and commitment towards increased enrollment rates for better access, collecting data to support the monitoring of Sustainable Development Goal 4.2, and implementation of a multi-sectoral approach to early childhood development.
GPE supports early learning
Events such as the ARNEC conference and the UNESCO-led policy forum as essential to building best practice and regional engagement. They provide a space that enhances regional collaboration and motivation for early childhood development.
This is something GPE supports fully and will continue to support through its knowledge and innovation exchange (KIX) mechanism, which includes a thematic focus on early childhood education.
Corrigendum: a previous version of this blog attributed the organization of the policy forum to ARNEC. In fact, the organization was led by UNESCO, with other co-organizers. The blog has been corrected to reflect this.