Imagine arriving at an unknown place, a strange planet, alone, with no familiar voice and no one to guide you. At that critical moment, your survival would be at stake. But this is how a baby’s life begins outside the mother's womb. The newborn experiences an unknown external world for the first time, and that’s why his or her basic need for skin-to-skin contact with the mother … [Read more...] about The tender hour: skin-to-skin contact provides the best start to life
A New Global Method to Measure Early Childhood Development is Available!
The early childhood development (ECD) community is celebrating! The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently launched a new package of measures, the Global Scales for Early Development (GSED), version 1.0, to measure, evaluate and monitor the development of young children in the critical first three years of life for use across the globe. Despite growing interest in ECD … [Read more...] about A New Global Method to Measure Early Childhood Development is Available!
Women’s Day: What is the relationship between child care centers and female employment?
Today, Women's Day, we celebrate all initiatives that seek to close gender gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean. From the point of view of early childhood policies, we know that there is abundant evidence on the impacts that child care programs have both on child development and female labor participation in developed countries. However, rigorous evidence for the region is … [Read more...] about Women’s Day: What is the relationship between child care centers and female employment?
Mother Language Day: How to promote language in parenting using a hybrid modality?
We know that mother tongue is the first language we acquire in our early childhood through our caregivers (parents, grandparents, siblings, and others). While it may seem like a natural process, providing services that empower caregivers to stimulate their children's language development from an early age can make a big difference for a lifetime. Today, on International Mother … [Read more...] about Mother Language Day: How to promote language in parenting using a hybrid modality?
10 Postcards of a Long Journey in Building the Regional Agenda for Early Childhood Development
For over a decade, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has been generating evidence and promoting best practices for the design, implementation and evaluation of early childhood services. Alongside the knowledge that the IDB produced through numerous studies and evaluations, its lending and technical assistance operations have contributed to strengthening the regional … [Read more...] about 10 Postcards of a Long Journey in Building the Regional Agenda for Early Childhood Development