Highlighted Session: Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE): Initiatives in Education Finance that Are Fostering the ECCE Sector

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

It is widely acknowledged that there is a significant funding gap in early childhood care and education, with the result that millions of children currently lack access to these essential services. For example, it’s estimated that over 600 million children need access to childcare, and 350 million children currently lack this access. This funding and access gap in early childcare also has a profound deleterious effect on working women, in particular. Over 600 million women are unemployed globally due to care responsibilities. And yet, formalizing care work can be transformational for working women and for economies writ large; unpaid care work represents about 9% of global GDP – 2x that of global agriculture.

Not surprisingly, fostering stronger access to quality and affordable ECCE is a major priority of multi-lateral donors such as the World Bank and of the US Government (USG). ECCE programming supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 & 5 (quality education and gender equality). The Global Child Thrive Act of 2020 mandates that USAID will incorporate ECCE into its foreign assistance programs, and USAID’s Basic Education Strategy (2019-2023) supports preschool programs that foster the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional development of children.

This panel session will cover the recent research and in-country program initiatives of USAID in the ECCE sector, with a focus on education finance and more specifically the work being undertaken by the CATALYZE EduFinance program. This session will first provide a context for the rationale and importance of the ECCE initiatives, including how it supports the triple bottom line (improved early childhood and development outcomes; increased women’s economic empowerment; and job creation), connects to broader legislation and initiatives in the USG that are supporting the ECCE initiative, and how these initiatives are coordinating with other donor and philanthropic efforts worldwide. The session will then provide key take-aways from a recent global landscape analysis in the ECCE sector conducted by CATALYZE EduFinance, as well as key insights and lessons learned from ECCE-related activities and in-country programs that EduFinance has been undertaking in countries such as South Africa and how this is informing program design in other countries. A key focus of the session will be on the capacity development underway for the ecosystem of local institutions – early childhood development (ECD) providers; financial institutions that are providing financing to ECD providers; and the engagement undertaken with host country governments to provide effective enabling environments for the ECCE sector. Considering the importance of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) in this area, the session will also cover the key indicators/MEL-related considerations in this sector.

This will be a panel. Rebecca Barbary (Senior Technical Specialist, Palladium) will Chair the session. Participants will include Mott MacDonald / Cambridge Education – they will speak about the results of the global ECCE market landscape analysis they are conducting); USAID (Suezan Lee, Senior Education Finance Specialist / Jamie Gow, Children in Adversity Team Lead & Senior Technical Advisor, to discuss the ECCE initiatives they are sponsoring and how these connect with and support broader global ECCE initiatives such as the one sponsored by the World Bank; and/or Fauve Johnson, Foreign Service Education Officer, USAID/South Africa Mission – to discuss the EduFinance activity in South Africa focused on early childhood development); Kaizenvest (education investor who will speak about the early childhood development programs they are carrying out in South Africa and Rwanda, to be represented by Ryan Harrison, Project Director, or Pacifique Muganwa, Investment Manager); and Katy Anis, a specialist in ECCE who will serve as discussant. Participants are TBC.

USAID Point of Contact: Suezan Lee

Sub Unit

• Early Childhood Development SIG

Chair

• Kathryn Smith, Palladium International

Individual Presentations

• ECCE Global Landscape Assessment - Results and Recommendations for Catalytic Investments - Dustin Benedict, The Palladium Group

• ECCE and Education Finance - A Country-Based Analysis and Building Local Capacity - Kathryn Smith, Palladium International