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Early childhood interventions key to achieving global equity, experts say

18 October 2010

Experts consider the period between birth and three years of age the most vital time for a child’s brain development and the time of greatest vulnerability to survival, nutritional and hygiene risks. But supporting children during these critical years is rarely a priority in national policies, programmes and budgets.

To highlight the importance of early childhood development, an interactive panel discussion on “˜Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood’ was held at UNICEF House in New York last week. Panellists highlighted the different dimensions of early childhood through the lens of their areas of expertise – including intergovernmental programming, economic investment and protection against violence.

“œEarly childhood is not only a critical window of opportunity, it is a golden one,” said UNICEF Director of Programmes Dr. Nicholas Alipui. However, he added, understanding this is not enough. The mission of child rights advocates worldwide must be to gather strong, disaggregated data on the importance of early childhood development and to make the data visible to governments and other decision-makers.

“œLearning begins at birth,” said panellist Lisa Jordan, Executive Director of the non-governmental Bernard van Leer Foundation. But only 53 per cent of countries have comprehensive national early childhood development programmes in place, she said, and this must change.

As the world strives to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, a set of internationally recognized targets for reducing poverty worldwide, early childhood is a growing focus area for achieving the goals with equity.

“œEarly childhood is a place where you see the highest level of disparity manifest itself,” said Dr. Alipui. “œYou can judge how well a country is doing by how well it is taking care of its youngest and most vulnerable children.”

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