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Civil Society Finding Local Solutions to Global Challenges

LANDSCAPE OF GLOBAL ECE INVESTMENTS

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BASIC EDUCATION AND LITERACY (BEL)

Sara Poehlman, Basic Education and Literacy Senior Advisor

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Agenda

Early Childhood Education in Rotary Basic Education & Literacy Strategy
Trends in Global Early Childhood Education Investments
Political Buy-In for Early Childhood Education Financing
Smart Buys in Early Childhood Education
Rotary’s Smart Buys
Way Forward

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Together, we seek a more equitable and just world in which all children and adults have access to quality education and lifelong learning opportunities that equip them with numeracy and literacy skills.

Basic Education and Literacy Vision

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Teacher Training or Professional Development
Education and Technology Programs
Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Skills
Early Childhood Education

ROTARY PRIORITY PROGRAMMING

Members are likely to succeed in projects that address:

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EARLY BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

Early interventions build the lifelong architecture of the brain.

Learning begins before birth.

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Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences

Two-generations:

Lighten the load of families by reducing sources of stress.
Facilitate stable, supportive, responsive relationships

https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/briefs/how-to-help-families-and-staff-build-resilience-during-the-covid-19-outbreak/

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Some factors in these most sensitive early years can also overload young children and families with stress and adversity. This scale from the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University shows the adverse experiences on the left that are tipping the brain to be hard-wired for stress, such as loss of parent’s job, sick family members, or the loss of school routine and social interaction or facing violence or abuse. On the right we see some of the protective or supportive factors we want to tip the scale for healthy brain development. The longest longitudinal study in the world was 75 years following male Harvard graduates and found that the most important factor to their lifelong happiness was a responsive caring relationship with their mother in their early years. As people of action who support protective factors like community services, we can think of a two-generation approaches that can help lighten the stress load on families and facilitate the kind of supportive relationships which are the key to early learning.

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https://nurturing-care.org

Nurturing Care

Working with health and nutrition professionals across the world, I felt like I sometimes had to remind them that in addition to their physical growth, that young children also need support to grow their brains. My reminders must have worked, as I was invited with colleagues from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and other partners to develop the Nurturing Care Framework to guide Governments and partners on how to address the holistic needs of children in the first 1000 days – providing good health, adequate nutrition and safety and security.

[ANIMATE] When we talk about early childhood education, we are usually addressing two main components of Nurturing Care: Opportunities for Learning, and also [ANIMATE] Responsive caregiving since early learning is embedded in the relationships and home environment for children under 3.

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In low and middle-income countries,43% of boys and girls under 5 years old at risk of not reaching their potential

Loss of $1.1 trillion of foregone revenue for early school leavers and $3.3 trillion for children without basic skills

Globally, only around 4 in 10 children are attending early childhood education programs

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TINY AMOUNTS OF EDUCATION FUNDING FOR ECE

https://theirworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Donor-Scorecard-2025-Final-7-May-2.pdf

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GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE FOR LMICS

Since 2020, funding has increased for middle-income countries and decreased for low-income

Source: https://gh.bmj.com/content/9/11/e015991

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ECCE IN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE FOR EDUCATION

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https://gh.bmj.com/content/9/11/e015991

How much is invested within Development Assistance for Education?

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ECCE IN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE FOR EDUCATION

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https://gh.bmj.com/content/9/11/e015991

Who pays for Early Childhood Education in LMIC?

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Who Pays?

In the US, businesses lose $1,640 a year for each working parent due to insufficient childcare, totaling $23 billion.�

UNESCO Only 51 countries have adopted pre-primary education as a compulsory level in national legal frameworks.�Source: UNESCO, 2021

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INTERNATIONAL FINANCE SUMMIT ON EARLY CHILDHOOD

Summit planned for 2027
Brazil, South Africa and the Philippines and more have launched new early childhood policies and investments that are putting the early years front and centre of their national agenda
South Africa has placed early childhood at the centre of its G20 presidency in 2025 -

“As a nation, we are committed to tackling inequality, strengthening human capital and laying the foundations for long-term growth and prosperity. Early childhood development is not a peripheral issue – it is the most strategic and cost-effective investment any society can make.

“Looking ahead, we know that achieving progress will depend not only on investing more but also on investing better. Different contexts require different approaches and the financing of early childhood must be designed to unlock both equity and efficiency.

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INTERNATIONAL FINANCE SUMMIT ON EARLY CHILDHOOD

SMART BUYS

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https://gh.bmj.com/content/9/11/e015991

Smart Buy 1: Early health and nutrition programmes

Smart Buy 2: Early stimulation programmes

Smart Buy 3: Quality childcare and preschool services

Smart Buy 4: Family-friendly policies

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ACTIONS – Improve equity, access and quality

Family support programs to reduce adversity
Parenting education with learning and play
Daycare scholarships or micro-enterprises
Integration of education in health and nutrition programs for early learning and responsive caregiving

Prenatal/Birth to Age 3

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The good news is that there are many actions we can take to improve equity, access and quality in early childhood education. Let’s start with the age group that provides the most return on investment. [click] Rotary members and clubs can and do support families to reduce adversity, which may be diaper banks, food pantries, volunteers to help navigate and access local services, [click] or parenting education to boost learning and play [click] Where there is high quality childcare, Rotary members can provide baby or toddler scholarships to facilitate access for low-income families or we can learn from existing examples how to create daycare micro-enterprises to promote early childhood and economic development, especially for women. [click] Looking at our strategic goal of making connections across Areas of Focus, we can also look at ways to integrate early learning and responsive caregiving into health and nutrition programs in particular.

Ten years ago at Save the Children, I stewarded a Building Brains toolkit which is still available online and still in use. An award-winning study showed that the cost of establishing programs for caregiving and learning was $102 per child to deliver activities and as low as $3 per child to add these components into existing services. Rotary members have and can support very affordable interventions that also have the opportunity to have a greater impact and larger reach.

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https://www.rotary.org/en/creative-thinking-helps-fund-early-childhood-education

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION INITIATIVE

Teachers and Student Outcomes:

No relationship between specific teacher background characteristics and learning outcomes.

Positive student-teacher interaction and hands-on tools for learning improve student outcomes

India

Alexandria, LA, USA

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PRENATAL to AGE 3 �IMPACT STORY

Business leaders in Alexandria, Louisiana, USA came to understand the power of early investment and early intervention
Raised $4.7 million for ECE scholarships and advocates with state legislature and local government to bring public-private-community partnerships to scale
Investment impact: measurable boost in school readiness, quality early childhood services, created +30 jobs in the community, improved staff attendance at work through reliable childcare, incited additional families to move there
Rotary's investment In young children provides returns for generations
https://www.rotary.org/en/creative-thinking-helps-fund-early-childhood-education

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Today, to kickoff BEL month, Rotary.org featured a story about Rotary member and businessman Patrick Moore in Alexandria, Louisiana. He attended a presentation at a Rotary club on brain development and early childhood and came to understand the necessity and power of early intervention to support children and families and build their community. In particular, the ECE initiative lead feature in this BEL month story raised $4.7 million USD to support early childhood education scholarships and spoke to their state legislature to bring public-private-community partnerships for long-term, state-wide investments in early childhood education. This early childhood initiative already reported back to their local investors on their returns. They have boosted quality of early childhood services, created more than 30 jobs in the community, improved staff attendance at work through reliable childcare, incited additional families to move to and invest in their community because it lives its motto of "Being a Great Place to Raise a Family." Rotary's investment in young children provides returns for generations.

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ACTIONS – Improve equity, access and quality

Public-private partnerships to create sustainable community preschools
Home or community-based learning programs (can also be combined with technology for greater reach)
Learning and development outreach via media
Intentional targeting to reduce adversity and inequity

Age 3-5 without preschool access

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Since only 4 in 10 children have access to early childhood education programs, that leaves 6 in 10 children without services. This majority who are excluded from preschool tend to be from lower income families or marginalized groups who would also benefit the most from services.

There are fantastic public-private partnerships where Rotary members mobilize investments in preschools that also support community economic development and more peaceful communities.

Home and community-based programs can also reinforce early learning and responsive caregiving without infrastructure costs. In some countries, these are at places of worship or libraries or community centers. In-person activities can be complimented with radio programs, text messaging, or game-based applications that facilitate play and learning at home. If anyone attended the Calgary Convention general sessions, you would have seen an incredible and willing potential partner like Sesame Workshop who already has productions adapted to languages and cultures around the world for example.

We can boost our communities also by assessing how we can reduce adversity by supporting children and families who face more challenges. There are programs that exist that target specific children facing adversity – such as those with incarcerated parents, facing family addiction or discrimination or displaced by natural disasters for example.

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Knysa, South Africa

https://knysnarotary.co.za/community-projects/

https://www.knysnaedutrust.co.za/2025/07/30/a-village-in-action-knysnas-commitment-to-every-childs-early-start/

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CREATING ECE ACCESS �IMPACT STORY

The Rotary Club of Knysna, South Africa met with local partners in 2019 to ask: What would it take to ensure that all children in Knysna have access to quality early childhood education by 2025? Made a plan and mobilized resources
Empowered women in underserved communities to open and manage 50 early childhood centres as social franchises,
Serving 4000 children and reaching over 5,000 parents in a campaign to improve early learning and development while offering economic development opportunities.
https://www.knysnaedutrust.co.za/2025/07/30/a-village-in-action-knysnas-commitment-to-every-childs-early-start/

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In South Africa, more than a million children under five don’t have access to formal early learning. In 2019, the Rotary Club of Knysna approached a local Foundation with a question: What would it take to ensure that all children in Knysna have access to quality ECD by 2025? Together, they developed a plan focused on expanding access, strengthening struggling centres, and encouraging parents to prioritise early learning.��Thanks to support from Rotary clubs in the UK and Germany — and a matched Global Grant — they were able to:�💜 Help 50 new social enterprise SmartStart playgroups open, reaching over 3,850 children�⭐ Support women to start ECD micro-enterprises in their homes�🏡 Improve infrastructure at 27 centres, helping many meet health and safety standards for registration with government�👨‍👨‍👧‍👦 Reach more than 5,000 parents through community events and media��Not everything went according to plan. Many women who started the SmartStart journey found it too difficult to continue. But a third stayed active over the long term, leading to 50 active sites today. But nearly 4,000 children gained access to early learning — and that matters, along with 5000 parents reached to improve learning and development at home.�

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ACTIONS – Improve equity, access and quality

Promote learning through play
Teacher Training to measurably improve learning
Integrate peacebuilding, WASH, Health and Environment into curriculum and materials
Provide other support to meet the needs of children and families facing adversity

Ages 3-5 in preschool

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For those who already have access to preschool, we can also boost the impact by focusing on quality. This may be promoting learning through play, supporting Teacher Training to measurably improve learning outcomes. Or looking again at the connections with other areas of focus and integrating peacebuilding, WASH, Health and Environment into preschool curriculum and learning environment.

[SNAP] With the development of neural connections, this is also a great age to introduce peacebuilding and conflict resolution skills and values.

Preschools are also a great entry point to provide other support to families to reduce stress and promote responsive caregiving, which might include adult education, facilitating access to other services, or setting up things like food pantries or back to school drives.

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IMPROVE ECE ACCESS, EQUITY & QUALITY �IMPACT STORY

Building Back Better for Earthquake-affected Preschoolers in Morocco: earthquake Al Haouz in the region of Marrakesh, club members in Casablanca mobilized $9000 and 400 hours of community service
Earthquake took lives of est. 3000 victims and destroyed preschool classrooms, leaving 100 young children at home with the trauma of their loss
Within four months, Rotary re-created a safe space to nurture these children through playful learning
Temporary spaces converted to literacy and play centers for all the children at the school once permanent classrooms rebuilt.
https://spc.rotary.org/project?guid=DECCB910-0049-4AA6-8CC8-1C80DD405F71#engagement

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Building Back Better for Earthquake-affected Preschoolers in Morocco: After Earthquake Al Haouz in the region of Marrakesh, club members in Casablanca mobilized $9000 and 400 hours of community service to make sure the youngest learners did not miss out on building strong foundations for their lifelong learning. Rotary brings together human and financial resources. The earthquake, that took the likes off an estimated 3000 victims, also destroyed preschool classrooms, leaving 100 young children at home with the trauma of their loss. Within four months, the Rotary contributions re-created a safe space to nurture these children through playful learning in their temporary spaces that will be converted to literacy and play centers for all the children at the school once permanent classrooms can be rebuilt.

https://spc.rotary.org/project?guid=DECCB910-0049-4AA6-8CC8-1C80DD405F71#engagement

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Reflections on Way Forward

Resourcefulness – adapting interventions to resource realities (Check out your local or online Rotary club)
Creativity & flexibility – partnerships, two-generation
Targeting for equity - greatest impact, overcoming adversity
Return on investment – measure and demonstrate

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