The Early Childhood Development Action Network was established as a network of networks to advance and promote an ECD agenda that diverse stakeholders can support, to advocate fiercely for that agenda, and to support collaboration and consistent messaging across multiple sectors. The value addition of ECDAN was to build a global movement to achieve economies of scale through collaborative action and continuous learning, reducing duplication of effort and leveraging omplementary assets, and harmonizing and aligning on approaches.
ECDAN’s multi-stakeholder task forces identified the following challenges to this plan of action:
● Advocacy and communications efforts by partners working together are scarce
● Diverse networks and actors seldom collaborate or co-create public goods
● Learning in silos is not often shared across sectors and disciplines
● ECD is in the hands of technical experts rather than the public and policymakers
Achieving timely action for ECD requires a shared mission and collective action by the ECD community. The SDG targets for young children are a frame for better support to parents and other caregivers and strengthen the probability in real time that scaling-up equitable, holistic, inclusive, sustainable, and high-quality ECD programs by 2030 could be achieved.
Vision
A world where every young child is safe, healthy, well-nourished, happy, and learning.
Mission
Recognizing that the early years of life are critical to long-term health, prosperity, and development, the Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN), through its partners, advocates for higher prioritization of and investment in essential, quality ECD services; facilitates knowledge exchange and learning; and connects and aligns with global and regional partners and networks across sectors to drive collective action at scale for all young children to realize their full potential.
Principles
As a network of networks, ECDAN aligns a diverse group of organizations and actors working within the ECD field. The following principles outline ECDAN’s working ethos and standards for partnership across the movement.
Be accountable
Support collective responsibility of stakeholders towards shared outcomes; hold responsible actors accountable for commitments and actions.
Be collaborative and respectful
- Collaborate to build trust
- Respect the contributions and perspectives of other stakeholders
Be inclusive, diverse, and equitable
ECDAN is open to all stakeholders committed to ECDAN's goals and principles
Be rights-based
- ECD is a human right and enables other rights
- ECDAN will work to uphold the rights of all children, women, and men
Be synergetic, relevant, innovative, and catalytic
- Strengthen and build on existing systems
- Co-construct from the ground up
Be transparent
- Engage in transparent behavior
- Commit to thoughtful analysis of the impacts of collective action
ECDAN is a platform for: