Join the Movement

News and resources

Back to listing
Blog post 23 Dec 2024

Moving Minds Alliance 2024 End-of-Year Message

As we approach the end of 2024, I want to extend my heartfelt wishes of peace and stability to you and your loved ones. In a world suffering from multiple crises, these fundamental rights are often denied, particularly impacting vulnerable children and their ability to survive and thrive.

The global humanitarian crisis has reached unprecedented levels, and no region has been unaffected. The IRC 2025 Emergencies watchlist reveals a world increasingly out of balance. Just 20 countries, home to only 11% of the global population, account for 82% of international humanitarian needs.[1] Children are disproportionately affected, making up over 40% of the displaced population and 50% of refugees, with nearly 20% of refugees being under 5 years old.[2][3] The impact is widespread, affecting cognitive and socioemotional development, with nearly a quarter of children worldwide living in conflict or disaster-affected countries.  Unless urgent action is taken, increased climate volatility will inevitably accelerate the vulnerabilities of populations living in already precarious circumstances, exacerbating crises and subsequent levels of displacement.

The recent publication of the Every Family, Every Child report by Theirworld demonstrates the major disparities in financing for children in some of the poorest countries – which are often those more likely to impacted by the climate crisis, conflict and displacement. This is confirmed by data published in the Lancet Report on the next 1000 days, which highlighted that “only 62 million children aged 3 and 4 years (25·4%) currently receive adequate nurturing care during the next 1000 days, leaving 181·9 million children exposed to risks that jeopardise their healthy development.”

All of this makes the work of the MMA more urgent and vital. We know that quality nurturing care is not prioritised in humanitarian response. Research by the MMA identified that less than 2% of global humanitarian assistance is allocated to early childhood development in humanitarian settings.[4] So, despite the exponential growth in the numbers of children who require such support and caregivers, there is insufficient funding to resource the scale and quality of provision required to improve outcomes for crisis-affected young children.

In 2024, the Moving Minds Alliance:

  • Advocated for children and their caregivers in diverse forums, including at Wilton Park WP3345 dialogue and shared learning with stakeholders in the ECD sector. At the 2024 ISSA we led a session titled  ‘Strengthening ECDiE Systems: Focusing on Local Capacity through Systems Thinking in Europe and Central Asia’, engaging participants in an interactive exercise to conduct systems thinking within their local context.

 

  • Instituted the Expert Advisory Group with five members, bringing diverse expertise from crisis-affected regions, particularly low-resource settings, ensuring that those directly affected by crises contribute to enhancing MMA’s advocacy for scaling the financing, policies, and leadership needed to support children and their caregivers in emergencies worldwide.

 

 

  • Launched the Call to recruit the second cohort of fellows for the Research Forum Fellowship Programme, which supports local researchers in Latin America, Middle East, North Africa, South Sahara Africa and South Asia to carry out studies on issues related to young children (aged 0-8 years) and their caregivers in emergency contexts.

 

  • Built a stronger network and strengthened its stakeholder communications, core team and steering committee to ensure we are more poised to deliver our mission. We welcomed Liana Ghent (ISSA), Gabriella Brent (AMNA), and Joel Dieudonne ( Co-Chair, Unbounded Associates) as they joined Leah Anyanwu (LEGO Foundation), Dieuwerke Luiten (Porticus), Andrea Torres (VLF), Nadya Hossain (BRAC), and Katie Murphy (Co-Chair, IRC) in the steering committee. Lola Ayanda and Sarah Ul haq joined the core team.

Together, we are working hard to finalise MMA’s next three-year strategy (2025-2027).

In 2025, we will:

  • Intensify our donor advocacy efforts and explore innovative financing options. We will support Theirworld’s Act for Early Years Campaign, which aims to secure $1 billion for early childhood development. Our emphasis will be on ensuring that these investments benefit children in the most vulnerable contexts.

 

  • Strengthen collaboration with global and regional ECD networks. Our research has demonstrated the need to enhance the broader Early Childhood Development in Emergencies (ECDiE) ecosystem. By doing so, we can better respond to the needs of young children and caregivers affected by crises and displacement, ensuring that our interventions are effective and impactful.

 

  • Work collaboratively with those affected by crisis and displacement. We are committed to strengthening our solidarity with affected populations by ensuring their perspectives are meaningfully included in our advocacy efforts. This inclusion is crucial for shaping global, regional, and national ECDiE systems that genuinely reflect the needs of those we serve.

 

I’ll end as I began, by wishing you peace and stability. I look forward to deepening MMA’s collaboration with you in 2025 to ensure that more young children and caregivers receive holistic nurturing care. Together, we can create a world where all children thrive, not just survive—a vision to which we are all committed to achieving and a mission that we cannot afford to fail.

Tricia Young, Director

 

[1] IRC 2025 Emergencies Watchlist

[2] World’s 10 largest crises force over 10 million children from their homes in one year – World | ReliefWeb

[3] Child Displacement and Refugees – UNICEF DATA

[4] analysis-of-international-aid-levels-for-early-childhood-services-in-crisis-contexts.pdf