Catalyzing Impact in Early Childhood Development
From 2019-2020, to explore how regional networks contributed to a dramatic increase in collective capacity for comprehensive cross-sector work advancing Early Childhood Development (ECD) in the past decade, Network Impact interviewed political leaders, senior civil servants, INGO’s, academics and heads of national ECD networks within four regions organized as: Africa Early Childhood Network (AfECN), Arab Network for Early Childhood Development (ANECD), Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC), and International Step by Step Association (ISSA) (2019-2020)
This research identified several unique advantages of regional networks in the ECD sector and showed how networks can be activated to achieve significant impact, especially in times of crisis and recovery.
Our Final Report includes these recommendations for funders:
Consider Investing in regional networks as essential infrastructure for the ECD sector
Match network support to stages of network development
Engage regional ECD networks as key thought-partners in global strategy development
The executive summary and full report can be found here. and here
From 2023-2025, after the creation of the Early Childhood Regional Networks Fund, Network Impact worked with the four regional networks again to explore the health and capacity of their networks, and how that capacity connects to impact. The networks co-created research plans to support each network’s strategy and planning.
The interactive final report summarizes key themes that emerged from the research in four sections:
Co-creating a framework for network health and capacity A deep dive into the process of creating and customizing a shared framework for understanding network health and capacity in the context of early childhood development (ECD).
Generating impact An exploration of how capacity building in ECD networks leads to different types of impact at the local, national and regional levels.
Crisis as the new normal A focus on how crises like climate and conflict are shaping the work of regional ECD networks and their members and
partners.Looking ahead Key strategies that the regional networks are using to cultivate engagement and generate impact in the next year.