Early childhood development
Growing steady and strong for a better future
Challenge
The early years of life, including the first 1,000 days, constitute a unique period of opportunity with profound impact on children – on their brain and physical development, mental health and emotional state, the readiness to learn in school and the social ability to interact with others. Children depend on adults for good health, adequate nutrition, responsive caregiving, early learning and stimulation, security and safety. In other words, young children need nurturing care.
A child's first 1,000 days of life strongly shapes their physical and brain development, mental health, readiness to learn, and social abilities.
In East Asia and the Pacific, the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened to reverse gains and strain existing challenges. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 28 million children were stunted and close to 8 million children suffered from wasting, which shows that children were not receiving the nutrition they need to develop to their full potential. Across the region, 24 per cent of children did not attend preschool, limiting their capacity to learn and progress in primary and secondary school. At the same time, violent discipline remains widespread, with an estimated 71 per cent of children aged 1–14 years experiencing some form of it.
The pandemic has disrupted service provision across sectors for young children, further exposing weaknesses in systems to support integrated Early Childhood Development (ECD) with reduced budget allocations amidst financial constraints. This crisis may affect the development and well-being of over 150 million children under the age of 5, preventing them from reaching their full developmental potential.
Solution: Building back better for Early Childhood Development
UNICEF in East Asia and the Pacific is committed to promoting high-quality, innovative, and inclusive ECD interventions that respond flexibly to children and their family’s needs in a timely, cost-effective and scalable way. We work in partnership with stakeholders globally and regionally, including the Asia Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC), to advance the ECD agenda through the following response pillars:
- Systems strengthening via an integrated approach on governance structures in countries while also protecting and promoting financing for ECD.
- Family and child-friendly policies to ensure that programmes and services for children and their caregivers are of good quality, holistic, timely, and continuous while catering to urgent and long-term contextual needs.
