ACCELERATING PROMOTION OF EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SYSTEMS:
Mixed-method evidence review of the potential applications
of systems thinking in scaled efforts to enable every child to thrive.
A great deal is already known about how to effectively promote healthy child development through interventions in health, education, and other sectors (1). The pre-eminent global framework for promotion of ECD at scale is the WHO, UNICEF and World Bank’s Nurturing Care Framework for Helping Children Survive & Thrive to Transform Health and Human Potential (NCF). Within the NCF, based on evidence, five key domains of nurturing care are identified as well as strategic actions to promote ECD at scale (2). However, in spite of what is known, few interventions promoting early child development (ECD) have been equitably and sustainably scaled and even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic substantial inequities existed in child development indicators between and within countries (3, 4).