March 27, 2025 – Rosa Taylor, a Knowledge Fellow in the 2024 cohort, completed her project titled Little Kids, Big Moves: Early Childhood Development and Climate Mobility. Through a literature review and key informant interviews with experts in climate change, early childhood development (ECD), and human mobility, this project aimed to outline current research and practices at the intersection ECD and climate mobility, elevate promising practices for addressing the needs of young children experiencing climate mobility, identify gaps in current services and planning, and provide considerations to policymakers and practitioners working with young children.
The project was focused on the following questions:
- Are the nurturing care needs of children who will experience climate mobility different from children who will not? If so, how?
- How can ECD services and policies best respond to the needs of young children and their caregivers experiencing climate mobility? Are there gaps in current practices?
- What can be learned from existing innovations that seek to address the nurturing care needs of children on the move for other reasons (e.g., because of conflict)?
- Are governments preparing for climate mobility? How can they integrate the needs of young children into their planning?
The report explores ten promising policies and programs identified by key informants, highlighting how policymakers and practitioners can begin to meet the needs of children on the move in a changing climate. These include programs that are mobile, remote, and culturally sensitive, as well as policies that are inclusive and child friendly. Building on these promising practices, recommendations are posed for policymakers and practitioners. Policymakers should include innovative policies that enable family unity, foster child-friendly disaster risk reduction (DRR), invest in child protection efforts for children on the move, keep children engaged with key ECD services like early childhood education (ECE) and healthcare, ensure systems are resilient and future-proofed, and promote inclusive growth in the places where children will move.