THRIVE NURTURING CARE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT - Country profiles for early childhood development - AFRICA

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Bintang

THRIVE Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development provides Africa-focused country profiles to support a monitoring and accountability system for early childhood development (ECD) under Countdown to 2030. The publication compiles and updates available data for countries and cross-country tracking, establishing baseline evidence for progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. It describes how countries and indicators were selected and refined through expert collaboration, outlines regional organization across African Union regions, and notes technical methods such as population-weighted estimates and data coverage thresholds.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages78

Reading Time3 h 17 min

AccessFree to download

Acknowledgements

Introduction

How the profiles were developed

Countries

Regional profiles

Indicators

How the profiles are organized

Next steps

Regional and country profiles

Technical Appendix

THRIVE NURTURING CARE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT Country profiles for early childhood development AFRICA Acknowledgements ● These profiles have been prepared by the Data and Analytics section of UNICEF, in collaboration with Countdown to 2030. The data compilation and production were coordinated by Claudia Cappa and Nicole Petrowski, with inputs from several colleagues in the Data and Analytics section who provided regional estimates for some indicators. ● The preparation of these profiles was carried out in collaboration with the Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development Metrics Joint Technical Working Group of the Countdown to 2030. Members of the working group include: Diego Luna Bazaldua, Maureen Black, Claudia Cappa, Joshua Jeong, Joan Lombardi, Elizabeth Lule, Chunling Lu, Sheila Manji, Dana Charles McCoy, Juliana Chen Peraza, Chemba Raghavan, Linda Richter (chair), Kate Strong, Emily Vargas-Baron and Patricia Wekulo. The working group is part of the larger Countdown to 2030, directed by Cheikh Faye. ● Data updates and production of this regional package for Africa was undertaken by Blossom Communications. ● The first phase of the early childhood development Countdown work was hosted by the Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, under the directorship of Linda Richter. ● The production of this regional package for Africa was made possible through a generous grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Prepared by: In collaboration with: Contents Acknowledgements 2 Introduction 4 How the profiles were developed 4 Countries 5 Regional profiles 5 Indicators 6 How the profiles are organized 6 Next steps 7 Regional and country profiles 8 Technical Appendix 68 Introduction These profiles are an important step towards establishing a monitoring and accountability system for early childhood development (ECD), affiliated with the Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health ([www.countdown2030.org](www.countdown2030.org)) . The decision to assemble available data in country profiles was first taken by authors of the Lancet series ‘Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale’, during its 2016 launch. The initiative was carried forward by a subgroup supporting the Nurturing Care Framework developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and partners. The profiles are an attempt to compile, in one place, the available data for country and cross-country monitoring and to provide a baseline against which progress can be monitored. More comparable country data and analysis are needed to propel the early childhood development agenda, monitor impact, direct attention to areas requiring additional effort and resources, and measure progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) . Progress is being made, and opportunities exist for further analyses with currently available data. For example, with adequate resources, country micro-data could be disaggregated further. Nevertheless, the country profiles draw attention to significant gaps, especially in extracting data pertaining to the youngest children and measuring services to improve nurturing care. It is hoped that the country profiles will prompt advocacy and action to refine measurement parameters and to collect comparable country data. How the profiles were developed Authors of the Lancet series collaborated on the initial selection of countries and indicators. Several authors contributed new or additional analyses. For example, the Composite Risk Index used to estimate the number of children under 5 years of age at risk for poor early childhood development was updated using the poverty line published by the World Bank, extending the trend from 2005 to 2010 to 2015. Updates on progress on the selection and refinement of countries and indicators werepres

FAQs

What is the purpose of these ECD country profiles for Africa?

They support a monitoring and accountability system for early childhood development, compiling baseline data for country and cross-country tracking under Countdown to 2030.

How were the countries and indicators selected and updated?

Authors from the Lancet series and collaborating experts selected and refined countries and indicators, with updates presented at guidance and measurement meetings and formalized through a joint technical working group.

What approach is used for regional estimates in the regional profiles?

Regional estimates use population-weighted averages of available country data for a defined reference period, and are included only when country data cover at least 50% of the regional population.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Bintang