Learning & Development
Journal Article
Building Capacity in Health and Education Systems to Deliver Interventions That Strengthen Early Child Development
Date
July 5, 2019
By Milagros Nores & Camila Fernandez
Building capacity within health and education systems of low‐ and middle‐income countries in order to deliver high‐quality early childhood services requires coordinated efforts across sectors, effective governance, sufficient funding, an adequate workforce, reliable data systems, and continuous monitoring, evaluation, and improvement cycles; it also requires partnerships with the private sector, communities, and parents. In addition, building capacity requires leadership, innovation of strategies to fit into existing structures, evidence‐based intervention models, and effective partnerships that help make interventions more culturally relevant, help finance them, and help create institutional long‐term support and sustainability for them. In this article, we focus on identifying eight critical aspects of enabling systemic support for early childhood services. Every action that strengthens these critical aspects should be seen as necessary, but insufficient, steps toward a national strong governance structure for delivering a locally relevant and comprehensive early child develop
Featured in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Special Issue.
The Authors
Dr. Milagros Nores is the Co-Director for Research and Associate Research Professor at the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). With a profound expertise in early childhood evaluation, informing data-driven policy and programming, cost and benefits of early interventions, evaluation design, equity, and English language learners, she has established herself as a leading researcher in the field of early care and education.