ECD Leadership Summit: Takeaways & Commitments
This document summarises the vision and context, our role as partners, and our commitment as leaders
1. The Vision for Universal Access to ECD by 2030
The 2030 ECD Roadmap describes the vision of universal access to quality ECD, focusing on the most vulnerable. Considerable political backing of this vision was expressed at the Leadership Summit by the:
- Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube:
- The early years shape a child’s future and, by extension, the future of South Africa. Or vision is that every child should experience this investment
- By extension, we must intentionally focus on forgotten and marginalised communities.
- Massive developmental disparities exist – 8/10 children in affluent communities are developmentally on track, while only 3/10 in poorer communities meet milestones.
- President of South Africa:
- The country should have prioritized ECD 30 years ago, but the second-best time is now.
- ECD is a powerful tool for breaking cycles of poverty and inequality. It is not just a tool for education, but for shaping our nation.
- The government’s commitment is evident in the R10 billion allocation to ECD in the 2025 national budget.
- ECD transcends politics – it must be a unifying national priority.
- Investment impact: Every R1 spent on ECD yields R7 in long-term economic returns.
2. Context for our vision: barriers to universal access & how to overcome them
The majority of children in South Africa do not have access to high-quality ECD in South Africa. The 2030 ECD Roadmap explicitly states the goal of increasing access to ECD for 1.2 million children by 2030. Registration is the first systemic unlock needed to achieve the vision of universal access to quality ECD. However, one of the biggest challenges is for existing programmes to get registered, due to registration barriers at the local government level.
To overcome this, funding & data-driven decision-making need to include:
- Evidence-based financing models (such as results-based financing) which can attract more funding.
- Tracking long-term outcomes (not just short-term outputs) is essential for sustainable ECD success.
The 2025/2026 national budget significantly invests in ECD after successful lobbying by the DBE and the sector, allocating R10 billion over the medium term. In this context of considerable government investment paired with considerable barriers, our role as partners and leaders in the sector becomes critical.
3. Our Role as Partners in Achieving Universal ECD
Government, Business, Civil Society & Labour Must Collaborate
- Business is a co-custodian of the democratic project and must invest in early learning.
- Partnerships should align with the government’s existing ECD strategy rather than operating in silos.
- Trust and accountability mechanisms (formal and informal) are critical for successful partnerships.
- Political leadership is essential in guiding and sustaining ECD initiatives.
Achieving increased access to ECD further acts as an Economic Driver:
- Thousands of jobs can be created in the ECD sector, primarily for women.
- ECD unlocks talent and potential, fuelling broader macroeconomic growth.
4. What We, as Partners and Leaders of the ECD sector, Commit To:
- Putting the children of South Africa first.
- Staying the course to shift the needle in the future. We acknowledge that there will be few "easy wins", and we commit to the long-term investment and hard work that will produce lasting results.
- Strengthening multi-sectoral collaboration by working together across sectors, including government, business, corporate, civil society, and labour to accelerate ECD access.
- Aligning our efforts with national plans to ensure efficiency and sustainability, acknowledging that this may require us to set aside some of our own agendas in the spirit of collaboration.
- Increasing investment by using our respective spheres of influence, big or small, to increase funding to support ECD programmes, recognizing the long-term economic and social returns.
- Increasing investment in ECD further by:
- Supporting that results-based financing should be explored as a tool for sustainable ECD funding.
- Aligning my organization's strategies and support to galvanize around the 2030 ECD roadmap.
- Improving access & removing barriers by:
- Advocating for policy and regulatory changes to simplify ECD programme registration (including centre, non-centre, home-based and mobile).
- Supporting local government capacity-building to ease compliance burdens for practitioners so that children can benefit, and to ensure that ECD targets are included in IDPs and other planning processes.
- Strengthening collaboration and coordination with Provinces.
- Driving Evidence-Based Decision-making by:
- Using data and research to strengthen advocacy, policy, and funding efforts.
- Developing systems to track short-term and long-term outcomes, ensuring effective interventions, aimed at improving quality.
- Ensuring Child-Centred Approaches By:
- Keeping the child at the heart of all initiatives.
- Building the sector as an attractive and supportive environment for young people looking for work by professionalising the workforce, for work and business opportunities.
- Striving towards a fairly compensated and appreciated ECD workforce, both for those currently working and those who will join.
- Systematically improving the quality of ECD programme delivery to ensure a reduction in the proportion who are falling far behind on their developmental milestones.
- Increasing demand for ECD services through public communication and information, and through improving affordability.
Conclusion
Achieving universal access to ECD by 2030 requires collective action and long-term commitment. South Africa’s future depends on investing in its youngest citizens today. Let’s unite across sectors to make this vision a reality.
Further questions from the cocreation process:
Questions for further discussion:
- As a sector, can we define the proportion of every rand invested allocated towards the children?
- What terminology should we use and be consistent with as a sector?
- After these agreements, what are the activities we can agree to implement?
- Do we want to say that we want to include men in the ECD economy and the economy of care?
- How do we increase business incentives for investing in ECD?