Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Naharikananda and you're listening to Express podcasts. Early
Speaker 1: childhood development, or ECD, is one of the most critical
Speaker 1: investments a society can make. The right amount of care
Speaker 1: during the first few years of a child's life can
Speaker 1: influence lifelong health, learning and productivity. Access to quality nutrition,
Speaker 1: health care, responsive caregiving, early learning opportunities, and a safe
Speaker 1: environment during these formative years help children reach their full potential. However,
Speaker 1: achieving these outcomes requires sustained and adequate financing. Investments in
Speaker 1: early childhood services like preschool, education and caregiver support often
Speaker 1: yield some of the highest social and economic returns. As
Speaker 1: part of our ongoing collaboration with Mobile Treasures, we bring
Speaker 1: to you the fifth and final episode of the series,
Speaker 1: where we talk about the need for consistent and adequate
Speaker 1: financing for ECD, which can in the long term translate
Speaker 1: into increased women's participes in the workforce, improved educational outcomes,
Speaker 1: increased productivity, and a better future. To have this conversation,
Speaker 1: we are joined by Shaikofei Zongi, who is the Global
Speaker 1: technical lead at Early Childhood Development Action Network. She has
Speaker 1: worked extensively for early childhood development and rural development and
Speaker 1: has a background in comparative and international education shake fame.
Speaker 1: Every government talks about children being the future, yet ECD
Speaker 1: allocations as a share of GDP or national budgets have
Speaker 1: remained stubbornly low for years. Is the real challenge simply
Speaker 1: finding more money? Or is it that governments often lack
Speaker 1: a clear roadmap to finance ECD effectively? What would it
Speaker 1: actually take to see investment move from political rhetoric to
Speaker 1: meaningful action.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for that question, and really happy to
Speaker 2: be here. Just in May, we brought together about three
Speaker 2: hundred people from forty countries, including India and Mobile Pressures
Speaker 2: was present at the meeting in Kigali, Rwanda for the
Speaker 2: first ever Global Technical Financing Forum and Early Childhood And honestly,
Speaker 2: this was the main question. This was the core question
Speaker 2: that sort of framed the three days we were there together.
Speaker 2: And I think the honest answer from an early childhood
Speaker 2: perspective is, of course it's both. But the second part
Speaker 2: of the question is that is what nobody really talks about.
Speaker 2: So what I mean is we don't have a money problem.
Speaker 2: In the abstract, you know, a minimum package of one
Speaker 2: year of quality early childhood education for all children would
Speaker 2: cost an average I think less than zero point fifteen
Speaker 2: percent of GDP and low and middle income countries, so
Speaker 2: that's not a lot of money. And the cost of inaction,
Speaker 2: we have a lot of data that shows it's eight
Speaker 2: to nineteen times the cost of investing, depending on the context.
Speaker 2: So the economics are overwhelming. And but what we heard
Speaker 2: from governments in Kigali over and over again is that
Speaker 2: the financing change in the system, it actually breaks down
Speaker 2: at every single link in the system. So we have
Speaker 2: countries that have strong policies, really strong ones, but unfunded.
Speaker 2: We have budget lines that exist, but they are executed.
Speaker 2: Early childhood spending is scattered sometimes across ministries of health, education, nutrition,
Speaker 2: social protection, but nobody can actually tell you the total
Speaker 2: because the system doesn't properly track it. So it isn't
Speaker 2: just about finding more money, although that is an important
Speaker 2: piece of it, but it's the second piece around the
Speaker 2: systems that I think it's really important. So I would
Speaker 2: say three things. First, this is the work of system building.
Speaker 2: We have to figure out how to make early childhood
Speaker 2: visible in the budgets, so creating codes, tags, tracking systems
Speaker 2: so that a Ministry of finance can easily see what
Speaker 2: the country is spending on its youngest children, and that's
Speaker 2: missing in most of the world. Second is the cost
Speaker 2: of services themselves. Most countries don't actually know clearly what
Speaker 2: it costs to deliver quality early child services, and without
Speaker 2: that you cannot make a credible case for more funding ever.
Speaker 2: So it's just that basic foundational work. And the third
Speaker 2: and I think this is why as a global community
Speaker 2: we're building this financing toolbox is to give our partners
Speaker 2: and governments a very pragmatic roadmap for financing. So it's
Speaker 2: not just about you know, throwing more advocacy and evidence
Speaker 2: at policy makers. I mean, we have a lot of
Speaker 2: evidence of why it matters. And what I find oftentimes
Speaker 2: is even if that is known, I think where people
Speaker 2: get stuck is how do we actually identify where are
Speaker 2: the financing gaps? How do you match services with the
Speaker 2: right financing instruments? Oftentimes you have instruments that are just
Speaker 2: not a right fit for the type of early childhood
Speaker 2: services we have. And then how do you build a credible,
Speaker 2: you know, realistic, executable pathway from where we are and
Speaker 2: where we need to be. So looking at the short, medium,
Speaker 2: long term, so early child that cannot survive on goodwill alone.
Speaker 2: We need the same kind of serious financial planning and
Speaker 2: execution that we give to infrastructure, to health, to defense.
Speaker 2: And that's the type of seriousness I think our field
Speaker 2: also leads to take right.
Speaker 1: And when financing is driven by short term parities or
Speaker 1: simple enrollment targets, quality, equity, and sustainability are often the
Speaker 1: first casualties. So how can governments make financing decisions that
Speaker 1: expand access while also ensuring resources reach the children and
Speaker 1: services where they will have the greatest long term impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is such an important question, and
Speaker 2: I think this is the really core financing challenge. And
Speaker 2: I know over the years we've had a lot of
Speaker 2: increase in just access and in fact, UNITSUFF had published
Speaker 2: a really important report in twenty nineteen. I know the
Speaker 2: data is a little bit out of date, but I
Speaker 2: think the core principles and the core messages are so
Speaker 2: true today. The report was called the World Ready to Learn,
Speaker 2: and they laid it out very clearly that pre primary
Speaker 2: education is so deeply underfunded globally relative to other education levels.
Speaker 2: Only about six point six percent of education budgets go
Speaker 2: to pre price and in South Asia, I think it's
Speaker 2: almost two percent. And so what we're finding is that
Speaker 2: the internationally recommended benchmark, for example, from the Tushcan declaration
Speaker 2: you know, which was done by UNESCO, was ten percent,
Speaker 2: and most countries are nowhere near that. So the fundamental
Speaker 2: problem is that pre primary education is actually seen as
Speaker 2: competing with primary and secondary for the same pot of
Speaker 2: money because expanding access with that quality. We have so
Speaker 2: much evidence that shows that the outcomes we just don't
Speaker 2: get and in fact sometimes it's you know, even goes
Speaker 2: in the opposite negative harm direction as well. And on
Speaker 2: the inequities piece, and in fact, I think it was
Speaker 2: Sumitra from Mobile Crushes that was a very powerful voice
Speaker 2: at the conference about this, is that are we scaling
Speaker 2: you know, inequity for all or equity for a few?
Speaker 2: Like what are we doing here? So I think there's
Speaker 2: a few things that we can consider. First, workforce, we
Speaker 2: need to look at it as infrastructure where you cannot
Speaker 2: deliver quality early learning without qualified, supported, fairly compensated educators
Speaker 2: early educators and I think, you know, Indian anganwadi workers
Speaker 2: are a perfect example of this. So the second is
Speaker 2: using financing to drive, like how we designed financing to
Speaker 2: drive equity and not just about expanding coverage. And third,
Speaker 2: I would say is, and this is something that came
Speaker 2: out in the financing forum very clearly, is to stop
Speaker 2: separating the conversation about access from the conversation about quality.
Speaker 2: So every financing decision needs to ask like does this
Speaker 2: expand access and quality? It's not an either or.
Speaker 1: Right and Shiko Fame Early Childhood Development Action Network has
Speaker 1: worked alongside governments across Asia and other regions on strengthening
Speaker 1: ECIT systems and financing. What common financing challenges have you
Speaker 1: seen countries grapple with and what have you learned about
Speaker 1: the kind of practical support governments need to move from
Speaker 1: recognizing the important of easily to actually financing it effectively.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we work with many, many countries all around
Speaker 2: the world, and it's kind of shocking how the pattern
Speaker 2: is quite consistent. I think most of the governments will
Speaker 2: tell you that early childhood matters, but when you actually
Speaker 2: follow the money, the story is different. And I think
Speaker 2: the most common challenge with early childhood is I like
Speaker 2: to say, like, when it's everybody's priority, it's nobody's budget problem.
Speaker 2: You know, when everyone says yes, yes, yes, that's important.
Speaker 2: Then it's nobody's responsibility. And again, as I previously said,
Speaker 2: early childhood, because it sits across multiple ministries health, education,
Speaker 2: social protection, nutrition, sometimes women's affairs, it belongs to everyone,
Speaker 2: and it belongs to no one. So there's no single
Speaker 2: minister who loses their job if early childhood doesn't get funded.
Speaker 2: And if you compare that to let's say primary education,
Speaker 2: which often has a legal mandate and a dedicated budget,
Speaker 2: early childhood is competing with this very structural, in built
Speaker 2: disadvantage that I think we need to think about how
Speaker 2: to shift that. The second challenge is on costing. For example,
Speaker 2: there was a diagnostic study done in Kenya, Tanzania and
Speaker 2: Mozambique and they found that the absence of any costed
Speaker 2: implementation plans was one of the main barriers to successful
Speaker 2: policy implementation. With adequate finances, so you can have the
Speaker 2: best policy in the world. I mean, this seems so simple,
Speaker 2: but if you don't know what it costs to deliver,
Speaker 2: you really cannot make that case to ministries of finance.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not how the ministries of finance operate.
Speaker 2: So just that basic thing. And third is is this
Speaker 2: fragmentation problem, So it's not just the government problem. So
Speaker 2: one of the things that we found at the Financing Forum,
Speaker 2: and one of the chairs of the sessions set it
Speaker 2: really directly to the partners in the room, like how
Speaker 2: can the early child the community globally like stop contributing
Speaker 2: to the fragmentation. We have so many organizations going to
Speaker 2: the same government officials with different frameworks, different different piece
Speaker 2: of the puzzle, different reporting requirements, different project cycles. I
Speaker 2: think we have to look at ourselves like we ourselves
Speaker 2: are also part of the problem. So I think what
Speaker 2: governments need is actually quite simple. It's very practical, hands on,
Speaker 2: you know, doing the financing work, costing their services, tracking
Speaker 2: their spending, identifying realistic financing options, building those pathways that
Speaker 2: fit within the public financing management systems. And again I
Speaker 2: keep going back to this global public good that we're
Speaker 2: working on. This financing toolbox. We tested it first with
Speaker 2: the Government of Rwanda where we spent two days at
Speaker 2: the Ministry of Finance, the fifty stakeholders from eight government
Speaker 2: institutions mapping financing gaps, testing it against real services. And
Speaker 2: so it's a working tool that's designed to be used
Speaker 2: by people who actually make budget decisions. So and one example,
Speaker 2: one insight from Burundi that I think captures the potential.
Speaker 2: They did something so simple. They did a cost benefit
Speaker 2: analysis that showed in Burundi specifically, so not taking global data,
Speaker 2: but that contextual data in Burundi, for every dollar investment
Speaker 2: in early childhood, the country would gain eighteen dollars by
Speaker 2: twenty to fifty. And so when that evidence that was
Speaker 2: paired with the capacity building on public financing, the investments
Speaker 2: in early childhood triples. And it wasn't just the evidence,
Speaker 2: it was the evidence combined with the practical financing support. Right.
Speaker 1: And India has a very massive population of young children
Speaker 1: between the ages of three and six, yet public investment
Speaker 1: in pre primary education remains relatively modest as a share
Speaker 1: of GDP compared with many other countries. Looking beyond the
Speaker 1: headline figures, where do you think India's greatest opportunities lie
Speaker 1: to strengthen financing for early childhood development and what kind
Speaker 1: of financing approaches could realistically make the biggest difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So India is really fascinating because so much infrastructure
Speaker 2: already exists that we don't see in many other places.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, ICDs is one of the largest early
Speaker 2: childhood programs in the world. The national Education policy recognize
Speaker 2: pre primary within the formal education structure. So we have
Speaker 2: the platforms and the policy commitments, and so the question
Speaker 2: is like whether the financing architecture is matching the scale
Speaker 2: of the ambition that's there. And I want to be
Speaker 2: really upfront, I'm definitely not an India specialist, and so
Speaker 2: the specifics of what will work obviously needs to come
Speaker 2: from Indian policy makers and researchers who understand, you know,
Speaker 2: the political economy, the institutional landscapes. But what I can
Speaker 2: share is what we're seeing globally that I think might
Speaker 2: be relevant for the Indian context, and I'd love to
Speaker 2: learn more as well. So first is that I think
Speaker 2: countries that are making progress, they're the ones that are
Speaker 2: finding the dedicated, sustainable, consistent revenue streams for early childhood
Speaker 2: rather than relying on only purely funding. So what I
Speaker 2: mean by that is relying just on annual budget allocations
Speaker 2: that fluctuate. So in the Philippines, for example, it's a
Speaker 2: time on casino earnings that supports funding early childhood. In
Speaker 2: a lot of US states, it's the tobacco settlements and
Speaker 2: lottery funds, but the principle of finding dedicated revenue streams,
Speaker 2: I think that's one. Secondly, India has been such a
Speaker 2: pioneer in some areas of innovative financing that are directly relevant,
Speaker 2: so they educate girls. Development Impact Bond in Rajasthan was
Speaker 2: one of the world's first. India has a CSR mandate
Speaker 2: that generates billions annually. SEBI launched, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the few like operational social stock exchanges globally to the
Speaker 2: innovative finance infrastructure exists in India in ways that it
Speaker 2: does in many other countries, and the question is whether
Speaker 2: the early childhood sector is positioned to connect to it.
Speaker 2: And right now I'm not sure where that is, but
Speaker 2: that's a real gap and opportunity. It's a big gap
Speaker 2: globally that the early childhood community in the social finance
Speaker 2: community aren't talking to each other enough. Third, and this
Speaker 2: is where you know, I think what I'm starting to
Speaker 2: see emerge. And again India is a leader in this,
Speaker 2: given that you hosted the G twenty a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago. We're early childhood in India's fundamentally also a
Speaker 2: care economy question. And I know mobile pressures has been
Speaker 2: leading that edge also, So India is having a major
Speaker 2: natural conversation about women's labor force participation and childcare being
Speaker 2: super central to that. And you know, as we know
Speaker 2: pretty obviously, if women can't access affordable, quality childcare, they
Speaker 2: can't participate in the workforce effectively. So framing, how can
Speaker 2: we reframe early childhood investment as an economic infrastructure conversation,
Speaker 2: so about workforce development, women's economic empowerment, human capital formation.
Speaker 2: So I think those open new doors that just early
Speaker 2: childhood programming alone, doesn't you know, How do we deepen
Speaker 2: our engagement in conversations with finance ministries, planning commissions, and
Speaker 2: the private sector using that type of framing. And I
Speaker 2: think finally, India's federal structure creates such an interesting opportunity
Speaker 2: for state level experiment and I think states can innovate
Speaker 2: on financing ways that the big juggernaut like federal system
Speaker 2: hunt and the best learnings and pilots and innovations. We
Speaker 2: can then learn from that and scale that and from
Speaker 2: what we see globally, the countries that make progress are
Speaker 2: the ones that stop treating early childhood as just the
Speaker 2: social program and start treating it as a natural development infrastructure.
Speaker 1: And finally, shak of fame. If there was one piece
Speaker 1: of advice that you would want to give to governments,
Speaker 1: development partners, businesses and philanthropists who genuinely want to increase
Speaker 1: investment in easily, what would that be? And how can
Speaker 1: they move beyond simply calling for more funding towards making
Speaker 1: better informed financing decisions that deliver lasting impact for young children.
Speaker 1: What can Early Childhood Development Action Network offer to support
Speaker 1: these efforts?
Speaker 2: So I think one piece of advice or one insight
Speaker 2: that I think I've been repeating a lot is like
Speaker 2: changing the question from how do we find the money
Speaker 2: for early childhood and for us to collectively and consistently
Speaker 2: be asking how do we build the financing system that
Speaker 2: ensures money flows to children reliably? You're a fayear And
Speaker 2: that difference, again, as I've mentioned before, is really really critical,
Speaker 2: and I think this is the big shift in the
Speaker 2: global conversation. Finding money can often be one time exercises.
Speaker 2: You get the grant to fund a project, the project ends,
Speaker 2: and then you start looking again. But building a financing
Speaker 2: system means creating the architecture, you know, the budget codes,
Speaker 2: the costing framework, the accountability mechanisms, like figuring out the
Speaker 2: domestic revenue streams. That really makes early childhood a permanent,
Speaker 2: protected part of how a country invests in in its
Speaker 2: youngest you know, in the foundation of human capital. And
Speaker 2: so for government specifically, I think the biggest shift would
Speaker 2: be joining the financing conversation that are already happening. So
Speaker 2: one of the big takeaways from our financing forum that
Speaker 2: happened in Rwanda, one of the power insights was that
Speaker 2: the money is flowing, you know, through debt negotiations, climate
Speaker 2: finance resource for everythue, social health insurance reforms, but most
Speaker 2: of the time, early childhood is just not at those tables.
Speaker 3: And then for development partners and philanthropies, I would say
Speaker 3: they're so concerned with like wanting to fund you know,
Speaker 3: DIIRCT services, reaching the children, reaching.
Speaker 2: The numbers, but what if they actually funded the infrastructure,
Speaker 2: so not just the programs, fund the costing exercises, the
Speaker 2: budget tracking systems, the public financial management reforms, the data systems,
Speaker 2: you know, those like that glue those building blocks. That is,
Speaker 2: you know, they don't immediately translate to you know, having
Speaker 2: reached X number of children, but really in the long term.
Speaker 2: This is what's going to keep the system working for
Speaker 2: children and for business. I would say that early childhood
Speaker 2: is care economy infrastructure. When women conta access childcare, businesses
Speaker 2: lose talent and productivity. This is in corporate social responsibility,
Speaker 2: it's economic self interest. I think the business case for
Speaker 2: investing in early childhood is as strong as a social case,
Speaker 2: but we just haven't cracked how to do that, you know,
Speaker 2: at scale yet and what the Early Childhood Development Action
Speaker 2: Network what we can offer is that we are the
Speaker 2: network that holds the complexity of the field together. We
Speaker 2: can lean across sectors and geographies. We co lead the
Speaker 2: Innovative Financing Learning Group with Brooking, the Education Finance Network
Speaker 2: and the Education Outcomes Fund. We're building this financing toolbox
Speaker 2: that would be a global public good for everyone to
Speaker 2: pilot and use and develop. And you know, we've worked
Speaker 2: with them, so we have a lot of resources and
Speaker 2: learning on offer and wanting to also learn from countries.
Speaker 2: And I think what I would say is ninety nine
Speaker 2: countries now have natural policies for early childhood, and I
Speaker 2: think that number might even be higher right now, but
Speaker 2: the number of lone liment countries and national early child
Speaker 2: policies has increased by forty eight percent just between twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty twenty three. So the political will is
Speaker 2: and then what's lacking behind is really this financing architecture
Speaker 2: that can actually, you know, meet those ambitions, meet those needs.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the gap that we all collectively
Speaker 2: want to close.
Speaker 1: You were listening to Shikofezongi on Express Podcasts. This episode
Speaker 1: was edited and mixed by Sriesh Pawar and produced by
Speaker 1: me Nihari Kananda. You can find the links to our
Speaker 1: previous episodes with mobile pressures in the description. If you
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