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Waarom?

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Why Early Years
The early years of life – from before birth to five years old – is a unique window of opportunity to improve lives.

Babies’ and toddlers’ brains develop rapidly, and small changes at this young age can have lifelong effects. Young children need plenty of love and attentive care from caregivers – in healthy environments – as well as opportunities for proper healthcare, nutrition, protection from harm and play.

Early experiences shape the brain
Research has increasingly shown that investing in babies’ and toddlers’ development translates into better health, greater ability to learn and work with others, and higher incomes in adulthood.
1 million
synapses are created in a baby’s brain every second.
250 million
children under 5 across almost every country in the world – do not receive the care they need to reach their full potential.
US$6.40–17.60
estimated return for every $1 spent on high-quality early years programmes.

Global impact

We work with our partners to bring about change at scale.
Through our partnerships, we create, replicate and scale-up programmes that can change lives.

Portfolio countries
We work in Brazil, Israel, India, Jordan and the Netherlands – where we develop long-term partnerships. Our on-the-ground teams work closely with local and national government and administrators, civil society, NGOs, communities and others to refine the most promising early years innovations.

Learning partnerships
We provide technical and financial support to strategic partners outside our portfolio countries to expand and impact our learnings in robust ECD policy and programmes beyond our core countries. By learning and sharing knowledge across borders and disciplines, we can truly grow the impact of our work and reach many more children globally.

Global scanning
With the help of our partners and networks, we track relevant innovations around the world and ensure these are reflected in our work.

Learning and documenting our impact
It’s essential to understand what works, where, and why. We monitor our interventions, evaluate our impact and document practices that have powerful learnings on sustainable change at scale.