Peer-reviewed article
Accelerating progress on early childhood development for children under 5 years with disabilities by 2030
Bolajoko Olubukunola Olusanya, Nem Yun Boo, M.K.C. Nair, Maureen E. Samms-Vaughan, Mijna Hadders‐Algra et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper examines early childhood development for children under 5 with disabilities globally, noting that a child's likelihood of having a disability before age 5 is ten times higher than dying. Despite this, only 2% of early childhood development funding between 2007 and 2016 was spent on disabilities, and disability funding declined by 11.4% during this period. The authors argue that children with disabilities in low and middle-income countries are being left behind by global child survival initiatives and call for urgent prioritisation of disability-focused programming, monitoring, and funding.
Key points
- Globally, the likelihood of a child having a disability before their fifth birthday was 377.2 per 1000 livebirths compared to 38.2 per 1000 livebirths for under-5 mortality in 2019
- Disability funding declined by 11.4% between 2007 and 2016
- Only 2% of the estimated US$79.1 billion invested in early childhood development between 2007 and 2016 was spent on disabilities
- This funding pattern has not improved since 2016
- The paper emphasises the need for disability-focused programming, economic analysis of interventions, and substantial funding to address inequalities by 2030
Limitations
This is a position paper presenting existing data and calling for action rather than evaluating a specific intervention or programme. It does not provide detailed information about effective approaches to early childhood development for children with disabilities or evidence of what interventions work best.
Abstract
The likelihood of a newborn child dying before their fifth birthday (under-5 mortality rate) is universally acknowledged as a reflection of the social, economic, health, and environmental conditions in which children (and the rest of society) live, but little is known about the likelihood of a newborn child having a lifelong disability before their fifth birthday if he or she survives. Available data show that globally the likelihood of a child having a disability before their fifth birthday was ten times higher than the likelihood of dying (377·2 vs 38·2 per 1000 livebirths) in 2019. However, disability funding declined by 11·4% between 2007 and 2016, and only 2% of the estimated US$79·1 billion invested in early childhood development during this period was spent on disabilities. This funding pattern has not improved since 2016. This paper highlights the urgent need to prioritise early childhood development for the beneficiaries of global child survival initiatives who have lifelong disabilities, especially in low-income and middle-income countries, as envisioned by the Sustainable Development Goals agenda. This endeavour would entail disability-focused programming and monitoring approaches, economic analysis of interventions services, and substantial funding to redress the present inequalities among this cohort of children by 2030.