M’mera Mpoyamba | Early Moments Matter

The importance of early childhood development

The foundation laid in the first years of life is critical in shaping health, education, and social and economic outcomes for the duration of a person’s life. Early childhood is the period most critical for brain development. 

Investing in early childhood health, nutrition, care, and learning programmes, including parenting support programmes, community-based childcare, center-based provision, and formal pre-primary education, yields high economic returns and offsets disadvantage and inequality, especially for children from poor families. 

Early childhood development in Malawi

In spite of its importance for brain development, school readiness, resilience and wellbeing, ECD, including care, stimulation, and learning, ECD has not received adequate attention in the country. Parents are not provided with the information or support necessary to develop responsive and positive parenting skills.  About 40 per cent of children aged three to five years are enrolled in early learning and care centers, mostly Community-Based Childcare Centres, which lack the resources and capacity to provide quality services.

Challenges

Many children in Malawi face challenges as their parents or guardians do not have the opportunity or adequate knowledge and skills to develop positive and responsive parenting skills. During the first 1,000 days of life, which are crucial to child development, Malawian children often experience poor health care, inadequate nutrition, little early stimulation and learning, and the absence of a protective environment. The challenges increase when children have disabilities and are affected by HIV/AIDS and humanitarian disasters. Negative social norms, cultural beliefs, gender socialization and power dynamics at the household and community levels have also hindered the acquisition of knowledge and skills and adoption of improved positive and responsive parenting practices and behaviors over time.

• Only 48.7 per cent of children in Malawi have access to ECD centres (MOGCDSW Report 2018)
• Only 17 per cent of children aged three to four years are developmentally on track in literacy and numeracy.
• More than 50 per cent of ECD caregivers lack skills on standard ECD package and the entire caregiving workforce at ECD centres works on volunteer basis, which has an impact on the quality and sustainability of the services. There is an urgent need to support training of adequate caregivers to provide required quality ECD services to all children.
• To achieve holistic Early Childhood Development, it is critical to provide continuum of care, as evidence have shown that in Malawi 35 per cent children are stunted; hence they don’t reach to their potential and ultimately will not be able to effectively contribute to the country’s development.

What is UNICEF doing to address the challenges

UNICEF is working closely with Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Health to achieve an integrated Early Childhood Development agenda. The aim is to have more than three million children aged zero to five in Malawi benefitting from nurturing, care, early stimulation, positive parenting, and responsive caregiving services. UNICEF is supporting the expansion of Integrated ECD services through various platforms, including Community Based Child Care Centres (CBCCs), community care groups, and health facilities. Furthermore, UNICEF provided technical assistance to the Government of Malawi in developing and implementing the National Integrated ECD Policy and Strategic plan 2018-2023. UNICEF also plans to support ECD services delivery through construction and upgrading/equipping ECD Centres to deliver a holistic package.

 In 2021, through UNICEF support, a total of 4,905,609 parents and caregivers increased their knowledge and skills on Early Childhood Development (ECD), health, HIV, and nutrition leading to improved early stimulation, nutrition, and positive parenting practices and responsive caregiving and quality of diets for 347,725 children between 0-23 months. Moreover, 864,654 parents and caregivers were reached through parenting programmes using different platforms, such as home visits and community radios.