Improving Early Childhood Development on a Global Scale

More than 250 million children younger than 5 years are at risk of not meeting their developmental potential, the vast majority of whom live in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).1 In response to this global crisis, as well as political demand generated by recent initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals and the multilateral Nurturing Care Framework, a growing body of pediatric research has focused on implementing and evaluating interventions to support the early childhood development (ECD) of LMIC-based children.2 Although these interventions have been found on average to improve children’s physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development, their effect sizes (typically d < .50) remain insufficient for maximizing all children’s developmental potential and their take-up by local communities is varied.