Investing in early childhood is critical to create opportunities for all children to grow into healthy, educated, and capable people and to address inequality and improve outcomes later in life. Governments are increasingly seeking advice and support from the World Bank to increase investments in the early years and improve the quality of early childhood services. The World Bank Group’s Early Learning Partnership (ELP) launched the Early Years Fellowship in 2016 to support governments and World Bank teams to scale up investments in Early Childhood Development (ECD) with a multi-sectoral approach across education, health, nutrition, social protection and other relevant sectors. Key objectives of the Fellowship include:
- To build the capacity of young professionals in countries to respond to client country needs related to ECD, thereby reducing reliance on technical assistance from abroad and ensuring a more sustainable, contextually specific and informed response to the challenges associated with scale-up of ECD services at country level;
- To improve the quality of ECD analytical work and program implementation in countries by increasing the number of experienced professionals available to advise and support country governments and World Bank teams on ECD; and
- To develop the next generation of leadership needed at the country level to scale-up investments in the early years.
Three cohorts have now graduated. The first cohort (2017-2019) of 20 young professionals worked with the World Bank and governments in 22 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The second cohort (2020-2021) included 25 Fellows who worked in 36 countries worldwide. The third cohort (2022-2024) of 14 Fellows worked in 17 countries across the globe. Fellows made substantial contributions to the World Bank and client countries’ engagement in early childhood, including through increasing cross-sectoral collaboration and through their technical contributions to analytical work and operations and contributing to early years systems-building. The Fellows had a major impact in expanding and improving the Bank’s portfolio of investments in ECD.
Last Updated: Mar 13, 2025