This meeting brought together over 140 participants from 18 Eastern and Southern Africa countries. Participants included government delegates from relevant ministries, national statistical offices, academia, WHO and UNICEF staff and partners.
The meeting concluded with the development of country-specific action plans to strengthen monitoring and evaluation of ECD.

WHO presented the Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development. Sheila Manji and Giorgio Tamburlini spoke about the importance of nurturing care for ensuring children and thrive. Giorigo provided examples from the Italian context on how they have operationalized the Nurturing care framework and are now working to strengthen the capacity of the workforce.

This ECDAN webinar aimed to help demystify the basic concepts of climate change, as well as processes like the UNFCCC, Conference of Parties (CoPs) and relevant frameworks like the Paris Agreement, 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for DRR.

In this webinar, a part of the COVID-19 Learning Series, the hosts (ECDAN) shared results from a scoping review on the nature and scope of the existing early childhood development evidence related to components of nurturing care for young children, including health, nutrition, child protection, opportunities for learning, and responsive caregiving.

The Hilton Foundation and Stellenbosch University presented an interactive webinar discussion on the challenges faced by young mothers, and potential solutions to provide them with effective support.

As part of this webinar, hosted by ECDAN, UNICEF and the UVA Humanitarian Collaborative, speakers shared key findings from the new Childcare in Humanitarian Crises brief, along with experiences from field implementation.

The goal of this webinar was to launch the Working Group on Fatherhoods, as part of ECDAN’s global initiative to support parents. The webinar serves as a stepping stone in the launch of the Working Group on Fatherhoods, and as its main objectives, the webinar sought to: elevate the work on fatherhood and male engagement in parenting being developed by various partners around the world; create shared alignment of all invited partners to establish international collaboration; and highlight advocacy work needed to encourage caregiving.

There is global consensus on the importance of supporting and empowering caregivers to provide safe and nurturing care, given their critical influence on children’s development and well-being, particularly in the earliest years. Caregivers of children with developmental disabilities are more likely to experience stigma, isolation, emotional distress and low confidence in their parenting skills. Despite the established benefits that parent-mediated interventions bring to children with developmental disabilities and their caregivers, the majority of families do not have access to parenting support. This meeting launched the WHO’s caregiver skills training package, which was developed to help address this gap.

Although global attention to early childhood development has been established through its inclusion in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 250 million children (43%) younger than 5 years in low-income and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential due to poverty and nutritional deficit. This is the third of a 3-part webinar series from Medicus Mundi Schweiz.

Although global attention to early childhood development has been established through its inclusion in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 250 million children (43%) younger than 5 years in low-income and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential due to poverty and nutritional deficit. This is part 2 of a 3-part webinar series from Medicus Mundi Schweiz.