October 2019 – This editorial article was a collaboration between Plan International and Promundo. It describes the importance of promoting men’s engagement as fathers and primary caregivers in the care and development of children, particularly in the earliest years. It calls for increased attention to promoting male engagement especially within the first three years of a child’s life to support brain development.
The article presents six key recommendations for implementers. They are drawn from collective lessons learned and reflections on operational and implementation features, based on anecdotal evidence including from key informant interviews with practitioners supporting male engagement work in four countries in Latin America and empirical evidence from recent studies in Bangladesh, Ghana, Haiti, Lebanon, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Nicaragua.