Parenting, like life, is dynamic and demands constant adaptation. Let’s just think about our parents’ childhoods: they were very different from ours, and the childhood of a child born in 2025 will be even more so. Many of the challenges the region must address around early childhood have evolved over the years. But there are also long-standing issues that still require new approaches and strategies. That is why creativity and innovation are essential to identifying the best ways to support young children from the very start of their lives.
Over the course of eight years, the Innovation Fund for Early Childhood Development (ECD Fund) supported 24 projects in 10 countries with one goal: to find innovative solutions that give every child the opportunities they need for a better future.
Innovation and Creativity in Service of Young Children and Their Caregivers
At the ECD Fund, we understand innovation as projects that address challenges in the field of early childhood development (ECD) or respond to local needs through the use of new or improved tools, services, or operational processes. We also consider innovative those initiatives that adapt existing interventions to new contexts or populations, and those projects that focus on analyzing large-scale interventions as well as evaluating their impact on development and service quality. Here are some of them.
Social Innovation in Uruguay: Teleassistance and AI Supporting Parenting
In Uruguay, for example, innovation was supported through the Family Support component of the Uruguay Grows With You Program—a government strategy to support families in vulnerable situations—which led to the development of an innovative teleassistance system to expand the program’s reach. By combining phone calls, messages, a chatbot, and artificial intelligence tools, this service allowed for remote support of families with children aged 0 to 3. It provided parenting guidance, promoted language development, and offered personalized assistance in accessing government benefits. By analyzing voice messages, the program delivered tailored responses to the needs of mothers and fathers. The result: more stimulation at home, less stress for caregivers, and greater access to social support.
Reach Up and Learn in Jamaica: Lessons from a Hybrid Intervention
In Jamaica, the Reach Up and Learn program, which aims to strengthen parenting skills through structured home visits, had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to mobility restrictions, a remote model was implemented that combined phone calls (as a replacement for visits), text messages, and a manual with activities. Based on lessons learned from the remote experience, a combined intervention was tested post-pandemic, with alternating home visits, phone calls, and text messages.
With support from the ECD Fund, the hybrid model was evaluated. Study results suggest potential improvements in caregiver attitudes and identify areas for improvement to guide the program’s expansion. They also point to the potential of hybrid models to help close gaps in ECD service coverage.
Shared Care: The Gane Tr3s Model in Costa Rica
In Costa Rica, the Gane Tr3s project promoted a shared responsibility model among businesses, families, and the State to expand access to childcare services. Through co-payment schemes and strategic partnerships among key actors, the 22 centers that participated in the initiative received technical support and training to improve quality. Preliminary results from this experience suggest that when different actors work together, shared benefits can be achieved: more children with access to adequate care, greater female labor force participation, and business engagement with social impact.
Beyond the specific projects, the ECD Fund was itself an innovation: a new way of working to improve the lives of children in the region. In 2025, the ECD Fund will complete its cycle, but its legacy will live on. We are working on a piece that summarizes the achievements and lessons learned over these years of work, so that beyond the impact of each project, the region will have a lasting legacy that reflects the knowledge and experiences gained.
If you want to learn how the ECD Fund is transforming child care in Latin America and the Caribbean, visit the website: https://desarrollo-infantil.iadb.org/en/innovations/ecd_fund
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