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Child poverty rates are much higher in Northern Uganda, with the lowest rates in Central and Eastern regions. Child poverty is much higher in rural areas than urban areas. The Neonatal mortality (new orns dying in their first 28 days) has stagnated at 27 per 1,000 live births and infant deaths have reduced to 43 deaths per 1000 live births. According to the UDHS 2016, less children die before their fifth birthday at 64 under five deaths per 1000 live births. Three out of 10 children under five years in Uganda are ‘short for their age’ or stunted; 280,000 are ‘too thin’ or wasted; and over 53 per cent of children below five years of age are anaemic.
Uganda is currently projected at about 39 million people and it is expected to double in the next 20 years.
The opportunity lies in the vast potential of its current children in the youngest age.
This rapidly increasing young population will soon constitute Uganda’s working age population.
Investing in the early years holds the promise for reaping Uganda’s demographic dividend in the 21st century that could lift hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and contribute to enhanced prosperity and
stability.
Why focus on
the Early Years?
Early Experiences shape the Brain
From birth to age 5, a child’s brain develops more than at any other time in life. Early brain development has a lasting impact on a child’s ability to learn and succeed in school and life. The quality of a child’s experiences in the first few years of life – positive or negative – helps shape how their brain develops. 90% of Brain Growth Happens Before Kindergarten. At birth, the average baby’s brain is about a quarter of the size of the average adult brain. Incredibly, it doubles in size in the first year. It keeps growing to about 80% of adult size by age 3 and 90% – nearly full grown – by age 5. The early childhood years are crucial for making these connections. At least one million new neural connections (synapses) are made every second, more than at any other time in life.
The early years are the best opportunity for a child’s brain to develop the connections they need to be healthy, capable, successful adults. The connections needed for many important, higher-level abilities like motivation, self-regulation, problem solving and communication are formed in these early years – or not formed. It’s much harder for these essential brain connections to be formed later in life.
Children who experience more positive interactions in their early years go on to be healthier and more successful in school and in life. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. Poverty, exposure to family violence and lack of access to quality early learning experiences can negatively impact a child’s early brain development, and subsequently, their long-term success.
Human Capital Development
As the digital economy continues to accelerate, policy makers around the world are grappling with how to prepare workers for the fourth industrial revolution and build human capital. we don’t know what new technologies and scientific breakthroughs will remake the world in the next few decades, but one thing is certain: the economies of the future will require a workforce that can reason, analyse, collaborate and quickly adapt to keep pace with innovation. So, the best investment, societies can make is in developing these skills in their future workforce – and this starts with investing early to develop the grey matter infrastructure of young minds – during the early years.
Investing in the early years, not only transforms a child’s life; it can alter the trajectory of a nation’s growth and competitiveness. The level of investment in today’s young children influences the quality of the current workforce, the future workforce and the future customer base. An investment in the early years is an investment in a country’s Human capital and future competitiveness.
The Potential Returns of investments in the Early years far outweigh the costs.
“The highest rate of return in early childhood development comes from investing as early as possible, from birth through age five, in disadvantaged families. Starting at age three or four is too little too late, as it fails to recognize that skills beget skills in a complementary and dynamic way. Efforts should focus on the first years for the greatest efficiency and effectiveness. The best investment is in quality early childhood development from birth to five for disadvantaged children and their families.”—James J. Heckman, December 7, 2012
It is becoming increasingly clear that the potential returns for investing in the early years far exceed the costs. A growing body of literature demonstrates that the returns to investments in children’s early years are substantial, particularly when compared to equivalent investments made later on life (Heckman 2007). Investments in the early years offer a cost – effective way to produce a well-trained and capable workforce and lead to better outcomes for those at greatest disadvantage. The benefits to such investments can accrue to individual children
and to society more broadly and can be leveraged to influence diverse policy objectives, including improving maternal health, promoting female labor participation, raising additional tax revenue and reducing expenditures on social assistance programs. The return on investments to ECD interventions depends on many factors, including the focus, duration of exposure and quality of programs being implemented, but they have been shown to have benefit – cost ratios as high as 17:1. For example increasing preschool enrollment to 50 percent could result in life time earnings gains of US $15-$34 billion.
It’s an incredible opportunity to reshape our future
– if we change their present
