September 30, 2025 – The Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN) has launched the Childcare Advocacy, Research, and Engagement (CARE) Initiative to transform childcare systems in Bangladesh, South Africa, Tanzania.
The CARE Initiative is a multisectoral, multi-donor collaborative focused on expanding access to high-quality, equitable, affordable, and inclusive childcare services by supporting and catalyzing local coordinated advocacy to influence the policies enacted and investments made at the national level. The CARE Initiative will support multisectoral consortia of in-country partners to build bridges across movements in the three countries.
Through an open RFP process, the following partners were selected to plan coordinated advocacy efforts to strengthen childcare systems in their countries:
- Bangladesh: BRAC Institute for Educational Development, Bangladesh ECD Network, and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development
- South Africa: Equality Collective, Smart Start, and Ilifa Labantwana
- Tanzania: Tanzania Early Childhood Development Network (TECDEN), Oxford Policy Management, and Conservation, Hotels, Domestic, Social Services, and Consultancy Workers Union (CHODAWU)
Why CARE?
Despite growing global momentum for childcare, ECDAN partners consistently indicated that this momentum did not materialize at the national level. Low awareness, weak political commitment, siloed advocacy, and limited funding for local advocacy continue to limit progress at the national level. To respond to the demand from partners and address the gaps that were raised, ECDAN engaged 130+ partners through a consultative process—including workshops, consultations, surveys, and a multisectoral steering committee—to unpack these challenges and co-design potential solutions.
The CARE Initiative is the second phase of ECDAN’s Childcare4All Campaign, which launched in 2021 in response to a crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic made glaringly apparent, to seek an increase in investments to expand access to high-quality, affordable, and accessible childcare services across the globe.
How It Works
The CARE Initiative aims to alter the status quo by building bridges across early childhood, gender equality/women’s economic empowerment, and workers’ rights movements, strengthening partner capacity, integrating a systems change approach, and coordinating advocacy activities for greater impact.
To achieve this vision, the CARE Initiative has four key objectives:
- Break down silos between movements and sectors.
- Develop a shared understanding of childcare systems.
- Strengthen advocacy skills for greater impact.
- Catalyze coordinated campaigns to drive policy change.
Each selected consortium will be supported in two phases: planning and implementation. Phase one will culminate in a coordinated advocacy plan that has been co-created with input from a range of key stakeholders. ECDAN’s childcare systems map, co-created by the Systems Thinking for ECD Collaborative, will be utilized to inform the strategy, identify advocacy targets, assess the key leverage points, and engage stakeholders across the ecosystem. The partners will then work together to implement their plan, bringing the movements of early childhood, gender equality, and workers’ rights together for collaborative action to build political will and public demand for improved access to high-quality childcare.
Next Steps
The CARE Initiative implementing partners across the three countries will gather in-person in October to build skills and relationships in preparation for their advocacy planning process. The implementing teams will meet virtually on a regular basis throughout the project to share their progress, learn from each other, and generate insights that can be shared with ECDAN’s broader network.