sa国际传媒

This has been a year many people around the world want to forget聽鈥� but 2016 has also聽been the year when a global movement began to campaign for action and funding on early childhood development.

Back in January, sa国际传媒 President Sarah Brown set the聽scene for change when she said: 鈥�2016 is a big year for ECD and there are many experts waiting to give their voices to support the case.聽

鈥淚nvesting in a tiny person is the way to get big dividends from our future citizens. Watch this space.鈥�

In only a few months, early childhood development has moved up the global agenda 鈥� with world leaders showing the way in terms of making it a priority to provide nurturing early care, particularly for the poorest and most marginalised children.聽

January also marked the official start of the 鈥� the set of targets to be achieved by 2030.

Ban Ki-moon, United聽Nations Secretary-General, said in March: 鈥淭he international community is beginning to act on this new understanding (of ECD).

鈥淔or the first time, the global development agenda includes a target for early childhood development. The Sustainable Development Goals recognise that early childhood development can help drive the transformation we hope to achieve over the next 15 years. This is a pivotal time.鈥�

Here we look at some of the key moments in this growing movement.

sa国际传媒 leads the way

Getting it right at the very beginning聽has been proven to have a life-changing impact on a child.

The better the start, the better a child is able to learn, move on to school and start contributing to the economy of the country.

Childhood education is a birthright, not a privilege. Let's make it happen.

鈥� sa国际传媒 (@theirworld)

This is why we are聽focusing on universal access to quality early years programmes to ensure all children have a healthy and equitable start in life in order to reach their fullest potential.

sa国际传媒鈥檚 #5for5 campaign is raising awareness of early childhood development and putting pressure on world leaders to take urgent action to make sure all children have access to nutrition, health, learning, play and protection.

We are聽working with partners to build the global movement and demand for action and funding for early childhood development for the poorest and most marginalised children.聽

The involvement of diverse networks, families and communities around the world is critical to securing new funding and ensuring the successful delivery and uptake of programmes and services.

The Learning Generation

The Education Commission 鈥� a group of world leaders and experts 鈥� spent a year researching and analysing the state of global education and launched聽a major report called The Learning Generation at the UN General Assembly in September.

罢丑别听聽to provide two years of free, quality pre-schooling to every child.聽It said聽nations must prioritise early childhood development and preschool to ensure the building blocks are in place for children to succeed in their education and beyond.

The commission said that聽is聽a very cost-effective way to improve educational outcomes, rather than spending more later to help children catch up.

At the report launch, Chief Executive Anthony Lake said: 鈥淚nvesting from the earliest days of a child鈥檚 life is critical to the development of the brain. It is a once in a lifetime chance to build the future of a child 鈥� no stage in a child鈥檚 life is more important.鈥�

What others are doing

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake聽called on world leaders in April聽to act quickly and invest wisely in early childhood development and nutrition programmes to reach children before primary school age.

They invited聽governments, development partners, civil society, foundations and the private sector to make ECD a global and national development priority.

The has continued to show leadership by聽supporting an ECD programme in Kenya

The 鈥� in its聽strategic plan for 2016-2020 鈥� said it聽wants to enhance countries鈥� progress on early childhood care and education.

It aims to do that聽by locking together better sector planning, stronger partner- ship at the global and country levels, exchange of knowledge, best practices and innovation, and strategic financing.

And that is the key to delivering quality early childhood development to every young girl and boy in the world.

Coming together and taking collective action is the next step to ensuring every child gets the best start in life.