Children as peacebuilders?: Lessons learned about using Early Childhood Development to strengthen peacebuilding, conflict-sensitivity, and social cohesion in fragile settings

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In recent years, Early Childhood Development (ECD) has been identified as a potential pathway for peacebuilding, conflict-sensitivity, and social cohesion in fragile and humanitarian settings (Leckman et al, 2014). However, practical insights about how ECD programming can promote peace are still scarce, with scholars noting that more on-the-ground insights are needed in conflict-affected settings (Ang & Oliver, 2015). This panel presentation aims to help address this gap. It summarises key takeaways from a study led by Plan International and International Alert on how ECD programming offers opportunities to promote peace, conflict-sensitivity, and social cohesion for children, their parents and caregivers. This study draws on interviews with Plan International staff working in crisis and conflict settings around the world. The findings offer both insights into the risks and challenges of different entry points and evidence-based, field-led recommendations for both practitioners and researchers interested in utilising ECD as a pathway to peacebuilding. The presentation of the study findings and recommendations is complemented by three presentations from Plan Country offices in Jordan, Myanmar and Uganda, through sharing of direct experiences of working with children, parents/caregivers and communities at the intersection of ECD, peace, conflict sensitivity and social cohesion in crisis-affected contexts.

The feature presentation summarises key findings across three domains of ECD programming: play, parenting support, and community-based learning. The presentation will further explain how, in all three areas addressed in this study - play, parenting support and community-based programmes - peacebuilding programs within the field of ECD can follow key principles:

• Nurturing young children’s capacities to be the next generation of peacebuilders means building prosocial skills in developmentally appropriate ways, understanding the key ‘building blocks’ for peace that young children can reasonably be expected to cultivate with adult support.
• A whole-family approach is essential. For example, trauma-informed care would also be sensitive to the effects of conflict upon caregivers’ wellbeing as well as children and plan parenting support workshops accordingly.
• To remain conflict-sensitive, practitioners need to constantly reflect on whether interventions in ECD settings are sustaining or reproducing structural and cultural violence (harmful dynamics of power and inequality), not only direct physical violence. This means looking beyond just the tools used and observing the classroom or group dynamics that young children are experiencing.

This presentation thus aims to contribute to CIES by offering evidence-led insights regarding ECD as a tool for peacebuilding, particularly for scholars and practitioners interested in the formative early years of children's lives. In turn, it aims to contribute to both research and practice strengthening the potential of ECD as a space to nurture future generations of peacebuilders. The full panel will share insights, opportunities, challenges and lessons learned, including from Plan International programs in conflict and crisis settings, with a focus on experiences working with refugees, internally displaced people and host communities in Jordan, Myanmar and Uganda. This panel will reflect on ECD as an entry point for peace and social cohesion, and the urgent need to adapt, implement and learn from ECD programs in crisis contexts, especially in the light of increasing conflict and fragility worldwide.

Sub Unit

• Early Childhood Development SIG

Chair

• Nicole Rodger, Plan International

Individual Presentations

• Peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity in Early Childhood Development and Education programming - Nomisha C. Kurian, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge; Caline Saad, International Alert

• Promoting Gender Responsive Parenting in Humanitarian Contexts in Myanmar - Meena Narula, Plan International