2025 Year-end Reflection

December 22, 2025 – ECDAN’s Executive Director shared the following message with network members.

Dear Partners, Colleagues, and Friends,

As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on the extraordinary resilience and commitment you have demonstrated in the face of unprecedented challenges.

The world’s youngest children are growing up amid converging crises—persistent conflict, climate shocks, economic uncertainty, widening inequalities, and historic declines in development assistance. Yet, you have refused to let early childhood fall off the agenda. Instead, you have pushed for bolder action, smarter investments, and more inclusive systems of care. Time and again, you have proven that when we act together, we can influence systems and narratives far beyond what any single organization could achieve.

This letter is both a heartfelt thank you and a renewed invitation to stand together with even greater determination, so that every young child, everywhere, can survive, develop, and thrive. Your year-end gift will help strengthen the network’s ability to continue fiercely advocating for young children and their caregivers in the year to come.

ECDAN’s strength comes from you—our community of 383 organizations and thousands of individuals committed to early childhood development. From local civil society groups and frontline practitioners to multilateral agencies, philanthropies, and research institutions, you have contributed leadership, service, knowledge, and resources to keep young children visible in global, regional, and national agendas, policies, and budgets.

The Executive Leadership Council, Technical Advisory Group, Global Policy and Advocacy Advisory Group, and thematic working groups have provided strategic guidance, helping the Secretariat navigate a complex and fast-changing environment.

We strengthened our movement for financing. Adequate, equitable financing for young children remains central to our work. ECDAN partners engaged in seven major global events—from the UN General Assembly to the G20—making the case for increased, better-targeted investments in early childhood development, childcare, and parenting support.

These efforts yielded historic commitments:

• The G20 prioritized early childhood development in its 2025 Summit Declaration, focusing on expanding pre-primary education investment, strengthening the care economy, and developing sustainable, integrated policies for children under five.
• The UN General Assembly Third Committee adopted its biennial resolution on the rights of the child.
• The UN Secretary-General released a comprehensive report on the rights of the child.

We deepened collaboration. We launched two new collaborative groups on financing, bringing together 21 organizations to co-create an ECD Financing Toolbox and explore innovative financing mechanisms. Seven existing collaborative groups continued vital work in other critical areas. Our ECD Systems Thinking Working Group launched a childcare systems map and applied systems approaches to childcare in partner countries.

We advanced learning across the network. Our learning events reached 9,690 registrants this year—bringing our eight-year total to over 67,000 participants. We shared 700 partner resources and published 15 new resources, including our landmark Young Children and the Polycrisis report. Our Knowledge Fellows program continued meeting high demand, pairing early-career professionals with mentors to complete advocacy projects that benefit the entire field.

We amplified advocacy. As part of our Phase II Childcare4All Campaign, we launched the Childcare, Advocacy, Research and Engagement (CARE) Initiative in Bangladesh, South Africa, and Tanzania—bringing together cross-movement consortia to generate public demand and political will for childcare investments and policies. We mobilized 82 organizations and 142 individuals behind a call to action for the Financing for Development Conference and partnered on the global Act For Early Years campaign. Additionally, we published new advocacy resources and offered capacity-strengthening sessions for a cohort of countries to elevate the needs of young children within climate change planning processes.

ECDAN will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year with a virtual gathering of all partners. In addition, together with the Government of Rwanda, AfECN, UNESCO, UNICEF, and WHO, we will co-host a global technical financing forum in May 2026.

We will continue prioritizing three interconnected areas:

• Elevating and linking early childhood in global, regional, and national agendas.
• Advocating to unlock and align on improved, increased, and more equitable financing for young children.
• Supporting country-level action through knowledge exchange and coalition-building.

We will deepen our work on childcare as essential social and economic infrastructure, address climate-related risks to young children, and engage in discussions on the future of the Sustainable Development Goals. We will also explore emerging issues including artificial intelligence, technology, and early trauma.

None of this will be possible without your active engagement, ideas, and leadership across countries and sectors. If you value the work the network is doing to keep early childhood on top of global and national priorities, I invite you to make a year-end gift to sustain and expand this work.

In a year marked by uncertainty and strain, your dedication has been a powerful source of hope and optimism. Thank you for showing up—for children, for caregivers, and for one another—through partnership, advocacy, learning, and action.

As you pause to rest and connect with loved ones, may you take pride in all we have accomplished together and find renewed hope and energy for the work ahead.

With deep appreciation,

Elizabeth Lule
Executive Director, ECDAN