The next 1,000 days: A vital opportunity for nurturing care
Building on the first 1,000 days of life, the period from age two to five is a crucial but often overlooked window for providing children with nurturing care. Defined as the integration of health, nutrition, safety, responsive care-giving and early learning, nurturing care lays the foundation for children's long-term health and development.
A new The Lancet series, with contributions from Swiss TPH, shows that nearly 182 million children aged three to four in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) currently lack access to adequate care, putting their healthy development at risk.
In addition, less than one in three children in this age group are enrolled in early childhood care and education (ECCE) programmes, despite 80% of interventions to promote healthy development taking place in such settings.
The series shows that providing one year of ECCE to all children would cost, on average, less than 0.15% of LMICs' current gross domestic product, with a potential return on investment of 8-19 times the cost of implementation. To ensure the healthy development of every child, the series calls for increased investment and provides actionable recommendations.
Find the series' papers here:
The next 1000 days: building on early investments for the health and development of young children: https://lnkd.in/dgpsQ7qa
The cost of not investing in the next 1000 days: implications for policy and practice: https://lnkd.in/d8tmT5Af
#ChildHealth #ChildCare Günther Fink, University of Basel, Rutgers Graduate School of Education, Universidad de 'San Andrés', The Brookings Institution, New York University, Universidad de Los Andes, Harvard University, Inter-American Development Bank, University of Pennsylvania, University of the Witwatersrand, University of Wollongong, University of Ottawa, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Aga Khan University, Georgetown University, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development