ABSTRACT
There is an urgent need to strengthen early childhood development and education in emergencies (ECDEiE) globally. Colombia has faced protracted and acute crises for decades. Also, the country has applied a unique approach to holistic and integrated ECDE policy formulation. We argue that these characteristics offer a valuable country-case to identify barriers and levers to the operationalization of ECDEiE. We applied a sector-wide analysis protocol that harmonized components of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee and of a framework to characterize the governance of ECDE systems. The study outlines how the policy and program characteristics identified may represent levers or barriers to the effective operationalization of ECDEiE in Colombia. We discuss how these attributes could be considered in the trans-sectoral dialogue between ECDE and humanitarian actors with the aim of strengthening ECDEiE systems globally.
Subject(s)
Child Development , Education , Emergencies , Program Development , Child , Child, Preschool , Colombia , Global Health , Humans , Intersectoral Collaboration , Program Development/economicsABSTRACT
The UN Sustainable Development Goals provide a historic opportunity to implement interventions, at scale, to promote early childhood development. Although the evidence base for the importance of early childhood development has grown, the research is distributed across sectors, populations, and settings, with diversity noted in both scope and focus. We provide a comprehensive updated analysis of early childhood development interventions across the five sectors of health, nutrition, education, child protection, and social protection. Our review concludes that to make interventions successful, smart, and sustainable, they need to be implemented as multi-sectoral intervention packages anchored in nurturing care. The recommendations emphasise that intervention packages should be applied at developmentally appropriate times during the life course, target multiple risks, and build on existing delivery platforms for feasibility of scale-up. While interventions will continue to improve with the growth of developmental science, the evidence now strongly suggests that parents, caregivers, and families need to be supported in providing nurturing care and protection in order for young children to achieve their developmental potential.
