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Together at the Table: Christmas and its Message of Union Around Child Development

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Christmas is a perfect occasion to bring the whole family together in a feeling of union and reflection, finally enjoying reunions that were postponed. Especially, it is an anticipated time for children, who look forward to enjoying gifts, games, songs, stories, and the attention of their loved ones.

We hope that this Christmas also finds us united as promoters of early childhood development in Latin America and the Caribbean, sitting “at the table”, collaborating and exchanging knowledge and the best strategies to protect the most valuable gift among us: the future of our children.

The diversity of faces and actions under a greater purpose

When it comes to early childhood development, we must all have a place at the discussion table, where there is no room for competition but cooperation. Parents, grandparents, caregivers, educators, program managers, political leaders, and policymakers must unite with actions to support children’s education, health, nutrition, and social protection. These efforts together, and not isolated, allow the most significant impacts.

At the Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund, we have witnessed the power behind shared learning and partnerships and the impact we can have when we come together to work for early childhood. Some actors intervene in the design of innovations, others provide the necessary financing and resources, others are responsible for implementation on the ground, as well as for evaluating projects and scaling-up strategies.

The spectrum of intervention of our projects is varied just like the faces of its protagonists. To name a few: we have projects to measure child development, interventions to stimulate the development of skills through play, text messages to support the parenting process, radio programs to promote social and emotional learning in educational settings with lack of access to technology; home visits and virtual meetings to train caregivers; mobile applications with information guided by behavioral sciences; delivery of didactic materials, various training, surveys on initial education and the quality of services, among others.

Although different, all these innovations were made with the same purpose that unites everyone in the region: to ensure that children have the care they need and the opportunities to develop and reach their full potential. Each protagonist and action represent a valuable contribution in this set of interventions.

The Hub of the region’s innovations

We are aware of the persistence of equity gaps in access to services, levels of development, and quality of home environment in the region among children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We know that much remains to be done to improve all children’s opportunities.

Driven by this challenge, a year ago, we created the Knowledge Hub in Early Childhood Development, a platform to make visible innovations produced in Latin America and the Caribbean and facilitate the exchange of relevant knowledge for our context. The Hub has an interactive map of the region with innovations in child development and multiple resources generated by different organizations, such as publications, measurement instruments, blogs, events, and webinars. At the same time, the Hub is an inclusive space where you can add your voice in favor of early childhood.

From the IDB and the Innovation Fund for Early Childhood Development, we invite you to this large table for discussions and to support children. Together, we continue to strengthen this great community that promotes early childhood development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our children need us together more than ever. Merry Christmas!

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From the Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund, with the coordination of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the support of the FEMSA Foundation, the María Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Porticus, and the Bernard van Foundation, we will continue working for the next few years with the strong intention of innovating to achieve the quality of ECD services.


Diana Hincapié

Diana Hincapié is an Economist at the Education Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). She leads research projects related to improving the quality of education, skills development, teacher policy, early childhood development, and the extended school day. Diana works in the design and implementation of impact evaluations of education programs and policies and supports the IDB’s operations and technical cooperation work in Latin American and the Caribbean. She is a coauthor of the IDB’s flagship publication “Learning Better: Public policy for skills development” and the books “Profession: Teacher in Latin America. Why teacher prestige was lost and how to recover it” and “Testing our teachers: Keys to a successful teacher evaluation”. She has worked for the IDB’s Research Department, the World Bank's Poverty and Gender Unit in Washington, DC, and the Center of Economic Development Studies at Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia. Diana holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from the George Washington University.

Florencia Lopez Boo

Florencia Lopez Boo is a leading economist in the IDB's Social Protection and Health Division, where she works on child development and poverty reduction projects. She was a professor at the University of Louvain and worked at the World Bank and UNIDO. She has a PhD in Economics from Oxford University (Clarendon-Oxford University Press award). She is also a Young Lives Research Associate at the University of Oxford and the Institute for Labor Studies (IZA) in Bonn. Twitter: @florlopezboo

Belén Michel Torino

Belén Michel Torino is part of the coordinating team of the Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund, an initiative of the Education and the Social Protection and Health divisions of the IDB. She has worked in evaluation and monitoring of social protection and education programs at the World Bank, the international organization for migration (UN-IOM), the national administration of social security in Argentina (ANSES) and the Ministry of Education of Buenos Aires City. She is a PhD candidate in economics (Universidad de San Andrés) and holds master's degrees in Economics (Universidad Nacional de La Plata) and in Computational Analysis and Public Policies (University of Chicago).

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