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.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) and Africa Early Childhood Network (AfECN) hosted this webinar series on “Accelerating Better Early Childhood Development (ECD) outcomes in Africa and Asia-Pacific regions through strengthened governance mechanisms”. The first webinar focused on the results of a mapping study on governance and coordination mechanisms for ECD in the Africa region, which was completed in December 2021 with more than 100 participants from both regions.

As custodian agency of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 4.2.1, UNICEF was tasked with leading the development of a new measure to track progress toward achieving the related target. Following five years of methodological work, the Early Childhood Development Index 2030 (ECDI2030) was launched in March 2020 as a new tool to measure developmental outcomes among young children and for SDG monitoring and reporting. This webinar took stock and reflected on implementation of the ECDI2030 over the previous two years.

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 webinar was the first of a 3-part series from Medicus Mundi Schweiz.

This report drew on the experiences of over 8,500 women and 300 health professionals across eight countries to expose the aggressive marketing practices used by the formula milk industry, and highlighted the impact on families’ decisions about how to feed their babies and young children.

This webinar aimed to kickstart ARNEC, UNICEF EAPRO and Save the Children’s Asia-Pacific regional initiative around advocating for young children’s rights to clean, safe and sustainable environments, focused on climate change and environmental risks/challenges (indoor and outdoor pollution, a lack of clean and protective play and recreation spaces and exposure to environmental toxins such as lead and mercury).

The goal of this webinar was to disseminate findings from two studies recently conducted in Kenya and Mozambique, which examine the acceptability and feasibility, facilitators and barriers, as well as initial outcomes of integrating monitoring and counseling on child development into routine health services. 

The Countdown to 2030 national, equity and early childhood development profiles was launched on 14 December 2021. This webinar explained how the profiles can be used for programming and advocacy, and how they complement the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent Health profiles.