AfECN – The Africa Early Childhood Network (AfECN) has launched two new initiatives on: Building back better: Stories of hope and resilience, which aims to shine a light on ECD practices, solutions and stories from across the Africa continent; and Regional advocacy capacity building program targeting government, civil society organizations, academia and communities with the aim to provide a sustained platform for supporting countries across the region to develop SMART advocacy strategies. AfECN has also published the first of the Stories of Hope blog series – stories be posting every other week.

Global Nutrition Report – The 2020 Global Nutrition Report examines the critical role of addressing inequity to end malnutrition in all its forms. Inequity is a cause of malnutrition – both under-nutrition and overweight, obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases. Inequities in food and health systems exacerbate inequalities in nutrition outcomes that in turn can lead to more inequity, perpetuating a vicious cycle.

Launch of the ECDI2030 - On the occasion of the 51^st session of the UN Statistical Commission, UNICEF launched a new measure that captures the achievement of key developmental milestones by children between the ages of 24 and 59 months. The ECDI2030 is meant to be integrated within household surveys and is administered to mothers or primary caregivers. It includes 20 questions about the way children behave in some everyday situations, and the skills and knowledge they have acquired. For more information, visit data.unicef.org

Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity (APCCA) – The APCCA Implementation Plan was released in response to the APCCA Strategy, the U.S. Government Special Advisor on Children in Adversity and the U.S. Government Interagency Partners participating in APCCA have developed an Implementation Plan, which outlines how the Partners will work together to achieve the Strategy’s Strategic Objectives, and how they will monitor progress and impact.

Catholic Relief Services – The Catholic Relief services issued a baseline results of a maternal mental wellbeing intervention as part on an emergency obstetric and newborn care project in Ghana. The Catholic Relief Services study describes the prevalence of depression among rural pregnant women, participating in the project, and examines associated risk factors for depression.

ECD Task Force Survey – You are invited to complete this survey if you are an Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) provider or program director. The purpose of this study is to understand - in light of the COVID19 pandemic - the extent to which your program is providing ECI services to children and families; what these services look like; what strategies your program is using to engage and work with children and their families; and what barriers your program has worked to overcome to ensure the delivery of timely and high quality ECI services. The findings from this study will inform national, regional, and international efforts to support infants, young children and their families as well as the ECI workforce during and after the pandemic. Please contact the lead researchers: Dr. Hollie Hix-Small at hixsmall@pdx.edu or Dr. Elizabeth Steed at elizabeth.steed@ucdenver.edu if you have further questions.

Assessment of ECD Programming in Humanitarian Settings – The INEE ECD Task Team is working with the University of Virginia Humanitarian Collaborative to conduct a study to better understand the global landscape of current Early Childhood Development programming in humanitarian settings, as well as the needs of practitioners in the field to improve program implementation and quality. Information from the study will support the newly invigorated INEE ECD Task Team to define future priorities to strengthen and expand ECD programming in humanitarian settings. Please take the survey here by July 27.