Most current literature on early child development demonstrates that the physical, social/emotional and language/cognitive domains of development, strongly influence their mental health and overall well-being, and their propensity towards obesity/stunting, heart disease, competence in literacy and numeracy, criminality, and economic participation in life. The more stimulating the early environment (social interaction), the more positive connections are formed in the brain and the better the child thrives in all aspect of his or her life.
Environments
While nutrition and physical growth are very important, children need to spend their time in caring responsive environments that protects them from inappropriate disapproval and punishment. They need to be able to play and explore their world and in doing so be allowed to speak and be taught how to listen to others. While most parents want to give provide these opportunities for their children they cannot do it alone. Parents need the support of their communities and their governments at all levels.
The family environment is the primary source of experience for a child. Family members and other primary caregivers provide the largest share of human contact and mediate the child's contact with the broader environment. Family social and economic circumstances are the most powerful explanations for differences in children's well being across societies.
The influence of national and regional environments is fundamental in determining the quality and accessibility of services and resources to families and communities. They are also salient for understanding the levels of social organisation at which inequalities in opportunity and outcome may manifest, and the level of organisation at which action may be taken to ameliorate inequalities. National, regional and international agencies have a very important role to play as well. Governments can, for example, adopt 'family friendly' social protection policies that provide for maternal benefits, financial support for the ultra-poor and allow caregivers to more adequately balance their time spent and home and at work. Policy makers can play a critical role in guaranteeing universal access to early child development services: parenting and care-giving support, quality child care, primary health care, nutrition, education and social protection.
The global environment can influence ECD through its effects on the policies of nations as well as through the direct influence of a range of actors including multilateral economic organisations, industry, multilateral development agencies and non-governmental organisations. Nations with less economic and political power are less free to determine their own internal policy agendas. Although power differentials may have invidious effects on ECD, they can also be exploited for the benefit of children. Requiring a minimum level of government spending on ECD and compliance with the Rights in Early Childhood provisions in the CRC, as preconditions to access loans for developmental purposes are two mechanisms that can be used.
Act While They Are Young
If governments in both resource-rich and resource-poor societies were to act while children were young, by implementing quality ECD programmes and services as part of their broader social and economic protection policies, they would each have a reasonable expectation that these investments would pay for themselves many times over (Schweinhart, et al., 1993; Schweinhart, 2004). ECD programmes and services (e.g., childcare for working parents, preschool, access to primary school) have high rates of return, and are an effective route to reducing poverty, fostering health, productivity, and general well-being.
First Contact – The Healthcare System
When one considers that the healthcare system is usually the first point of contact for families with newborns and very young children, it makes sense using the healthcare system as the gateway to other early childhood services. The health care system also provides more facilities and services that are more widely accessible in many societies than any other human service. They are already concerned with the health of individuals and communities, employ trained professionals and is therefore in a very unique position to contribute to ECD.
Levelling The Playing Field
Inequalities in socio-economic resources result in inequalities in early childhood development. Levelling the playing field to allow greater opportunities for those most at-risk requires the provision of a wide range of important resources to children as a right of citizenship, rather than allowing them to be a luxury for those families and communities with sufficient purchasing power.
To maximise effect however, services at all levels need to be better coordinated and to converge at the family and community level in a way that puts the child at the centre. Often in the Caribbean, ECD has received low priority in the development of quality services. These services have frequently been the responsibility of multiple government departments, at central and local levels, and their planning has often been piecemeal and uncoordinated.
However, as the economists are now pointing out, investing in quality ECD programmes and services is not just a social equity issue, it is an economic imperative.
'A Powerful Equaliser' stresses that whether rich or poor, societies that invest in children and families in the early years, have the most literate and numerate populations. Those societies have the best health status and lowest levels of health inequalities in the world. The transformation of the “Tiger Economies” of Southeast Asia from resource-poor, low life expectancy to resource-rich, high life expectancy societies was accomplished primarily through investment in children, from conception to school. Thus, the scale of potential economic gain for resource-poor societies in adopting child development as a cornerstone to their development strategies can be measured not just in cost-benefit terms at the micro level, but in multiples of economic scale (Schady, 2005; Behrman, Cheng & Todd, 2004).
See the full WHO document Early Childhood Development: A Powerful Equalizer in PDF format at http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2007/a91213.pdf
