Armed with a growing body of data on the economic and social returns to early childhood education, global philanthropic foundations and other donor organizations are seeking the most effective ways to discover, invest in, and scale up or cross-pollinate successful early childhood learning models. With support from the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, R4D has developed a prospectus for an Early Learning Challenge to catalyze new investment in early learning programs in pilot countries Kenya and Tanzania.
The report analyzes fifteen existing funding mechanisms in international development to identify effective governance and management structures, and makes recommendations for how an Early Learning Challenge (ELC) might be designed. The report also includes a landscape and analysis of early learning programs in Kenya and Tanzania, and a pipeline of potential investments for the prospective ELC. The report’s annexes (available by request from Michelle Engmann) include detailed project descriptions of the most promising programs.
