Early childhood development (ECD) programs play a crucial role in promoting children’s cognition and language. Many programs include home visitors or groups who work with parents and young children through play activities that not only build children’s language and cognitive skills, but also engage children and parents together to experience the joy of playing and learning … [Read more...] about Balancing Scale and Quality: Insights from a Meta-Analysis on Early Childhood Development Programs
childcare
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?
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
Preventing violence in early childhood in the context of COVID-19
In late 2021, more than 80 officials and representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean met for a dialogue on the challenges faced and the innovations developed around the issues of health, social protection, and early childhood development since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that Regional Policy Dialogue, we discussed extensively the subject of violence against … [Read more...] about Preventing violence in early childhood in the context of COVID-19
Why we can’t afford to let early childhood education fall through the COVID-19 cracks
This post originally appeared on UNICEF Connect’s Evidence for Action blog on 22 July 2021 A few weeks ago, after his last day at kindergarten, my son wanted to show me his portfolio. Marveling at the delightful collection of drawings, crafts, photos and teacher notes, I couldn’t believe how lucky we are that he got to experience a full year of kindergarten, in spite of … [Read more...] about Why we can’t afford to let early childhood education fall through the COVID-19 cracks