INVESTING IN CHILDREN IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

UNICEF, with the support of the Joint SDG Fund and together with the UN Country Team in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has completed three Investment Cases in Early Childhood Development (ECD) at the level of the three administrative units: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and Brcko District. Each report covers the three sectors crucial to ECD – health and nutrition, education, and social protection. Further, the Investment Cases have been complemented with two in-depth Feasibility Studies focusing on scaling up early childhood education at local level.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the importance of ECD cannot be understated. BiH is faced with a rapidly ageing and shrinking population, which presents a concerted threat to economic and social development. ECD is particularly important given this demographic context: children must be the focus of urgent policy and investment attention. Over the past fifteen years, progress has been made towards a conducive policy environment for ECD. However, there are clear untapped opportunities to invest in BiH’s younger generations. With fewer children and limited resources, BiH must cultivate a skilled, productive young work force in order to sustain and improve economic and social conditions.

Beyond the moral importance of investing in early childhood as a human right, investing in ECD is shown to be among the best investments BiH can make in its future, yielding huge socio-economic returns not only for children and their families, but for the society as a whole. An investment in early childhood thus lays a strong foundation for development, increases the effectiveness of the education and health systems, improves the chances of economic productivity and growth, and contributes to a society of equal opportunities that leaves no one behind.

The Investment Cases in FBiH, RS and BD are based on a series of cost-benefit and cost-of-inaction analyses of the services for children aged 0 to 6 in each of the three sectors. A package of interventions based on the Nurturing Care Framework was selected in each of these sectors. The short-, medium- and long-term costs and benefits associated with scaling up coverage of these interventions were then identified, quantified, and monetized. Through a cost-benefit analysis, these studies found that the scaling up ECD  is a highly cost-effective and catalytic focus for investments. Further, the cost-of-inaction analysis illustrates the impressive economic cost of not investing in ECD.

The findings are striking and one-of-a-kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and provide a very compelling case for investing in social services for children. The projected socio-economic benefits of scaling up interventions in BiH are expected to far outweigh costs in all the administrative units, sectors and scenarios analyzed. This means that every BAM invested in ECD interventions yields a strong, positive return on investment, predominantly driven by reduction of preventable maternal and child mortality and morbidity, improved educational outcomes and life-long earnings, and reduction in poverty and inequality. Further, significant economic benefits will be foregone if these investments in ECD are not made: by failing to scale up ECD interventions, BiH stands to lose billions BAM over the next thirty years.

Therefore, these Investment Cases present the most solid evidence collated to date to justify investment in ECD in BiH. They seek to serve as a tool for advocacy and decision-making for child-focused stakeholders in BiH, supporting the implementation of long-term evidence-based programming of social spending and, ultimately, improved outcomes for young children. Child-focused stakeholders should draw on its language of both economic returns and child rights to motivate for improved investments in children. Further, they should use the evidence generated in this study to highlight the foundational role ECD plays in economic and social development. A failure to invest in young children should be positioned as having the potential to undermine other investments: without a well-educated, healthy and productive workforce, economic development will be stilted.  In the context of pressing demographic challenges, the impetus for BiH to scale-up services for its young children is now more important than ever.

SCALING UP EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE FEASIBILITY STUDIES IN RS and FBiH

UNICEF BiH, together with the partners from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Republika Srpska, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of West Herzegovina Canton, the City administrations of Bijeljina and Ljubuški, as well as representatives from public and private preschool providers, has completed the Feasibility study for scaling up early childhood education and care as part of the programme “Strengthening of social and health protection in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina“, which is implemented with the support of USAID BIH. 

Beyond the moral importance of investing in early childhood development as a human right, investing in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is shown to be among the best investments governments can make, yielding huge socio-economic returns not only for children and their families, but for the society as a whole. Within this context, UNICEF has conducted the feasibility of scaling up ECEC in FBiH and RS, using as case studies of the Cities of Bijeljina and Ljubuški. The studies focus on the financing options to achieve full ECEC coverage based on the financial, legal, operational, and political feasibility, and are intended to strengthen capacities for evidence-based financial planning and to provide practical guidance for decision-makers on how to provide such an intervention.