BACKGROUND: Child marriage remains a challenge in Ghana. Over the years, government and development partners have made various commitments and efforts to curb the phenomenon of child marriage. However, there is little empirical evidence on the predictors, norms and practices surrounding the practice to support their efforts, a gap this study sought to fill. METHODS: The study employed a multiple-method approach to achieve the set objectives. Data from the women's file of the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) was used to examine the predictors of child marriage using frequencies and logistic regression methods. Data from Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) collected in Central and Northern regions of Ghana were used to examine norms and practices surrounding child marriage using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Two in ten (20.68%) girls in the quantitative sample married as children. The results revealed that girls who had never attended school compared to those who had ever attended school were more likely to marry as children (OR, 3.01). Compared with girls in the lowest wealth quintile, girls in the middle (OR, 0.59), fourth (OR, 0.37) and highest (OR, 0.32) wealth quintiles were less likely to marry as children. From the qualitative data, the study identified poverty, teenage pregnancy, and cultural norms such as betrothal marriage, exchange of girls for marriage and pressure from significant others as the drivers of child marriage. CONCLUSIONS: The findings show that various socio-economic and cultural factors such as education, teenage pregnancy and poverty influence child marriage. Hence, efforts to curb child marriage should be geared towards retention of girls in school, curbing teenage pregnancy, empowering girls economically, enforcing laws on child marriage in Ghana, as well as designing tailored advocacy programs to educate key stakeholders and adolescent girls on the consequences of child marriage. Additionally, there is the need to address socio-cultural norms/practices to help end child marriage.
Background: The first 1,000 days are crucial for a child's development. Indonesia has limited research on responsive caregiving and early learning opportunities, especially for children with nutritional challenges. While studies have addressed general child nutrition, few have explored comprehensive nurturing care interventions. This gap underscores the need for further research. Educational videos, particularly animated ones, effectively capture attention and improve understanding, making them valuable for enhancing maternal knowledge and child growth.Purpose: This study aimed to assess the impact of nurturing care educational videos on mothers' knowledge and child growth in children aged 6-23 months with nutritional challenges.Methods: A quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent and untreated control groups was employed. Seventy-three mothers and their children aged 6-23 months, facing nutritional challenges, were recruited through consecutive sampling. The intervention group received nurturing care educational videos. Statistical analyses included dependent t-tests, independent t-tests, and repeated measures ANOVA.Results: The intervention group showed significant improvements in nurturing care knowledge (p = 0.012), responsive caregiving (p = 0.018), and safety and security (p = 0.006). A significant difference in safety and security was observed between groups at posttest 1 (p = 0.020). Both groups exhibited significant increases in children's body weight and height: the intervention group (body weight, p = 0.005; body height, p < 0.001) and the control group (body weight, p < 0.001; body height, p < 0.001).Conclusion: Nurturing care educational videos had a significant positive impact on enhancing mothers' knowledge and promoting child growth. Notable improvements were observed in nurturing care knowledge, responsive caregiving practices, and safety and security measures among caregivers exposed to the intervention.
Fitri Haryanti, Lely Lusmilasari, Sri Hartini et al.
Child marriage is a worldwide priority issue as ending child marriage by 2023 is a target embedded in the Sustainability Development Goal (SDG). The child marriage practice is going on around the world. Based on the latest data 21% of young women were married as children. In Bangladesh, 38% of adolescent girls are married before the age of 15, and 51% of young women are married before their 18th birthday. Since research on this particular issue is very scanty, this study aims to explain the perception of Secondary School girls about child marriage and provide practice-based recommendations for strengthening the community especially girls to prevent it. According to the law of Bangladesh, the minimum age of marriage for girls is 18 years and for boys is 21 years . Any marriage before these ages can be treated as child marriage. In practice, child marriage is happening in Bangladesh, particularly in urban slums and rural areas. The studies show poverty and ignorance of the parents/ guardians about the consequence of child marriage, less access to sexual & reproductive health services, and prevailing social norms of marriage are the main reasons for child marriage .
OBJECTIVES: Community-based arts interventions have the potential to support contextually relevant nurturing care programmes and policies that adapt to different settings. Understanding the distinctive features of using the arts in local, culturally specific ways in low/middle-income countries (LMICs); how this varies by context; and gaining a better understanding of the perspectives on desirable outcomes for communities is important evidence that this review generates. DESIGN: We conducted a realist review of papers that covered outcomes related to child health or development (0-5 years) AND arts-based approaches AND community-based, participatory approaches AND based in LMICs using a range of databases and other networks. A coding framework was developed covering context, intervention, outcomes, mechanisms, study, sustainability, transferability and scalability. RESULTS: The included papers reported 18 unique interventions. Interventions covered 14 countries, with evidence lacking for South America, Arab countries and parts of Africa. Lead authors came from mostly clinical science-based disciplines and from institutions in a different country to the country/countries studied. Intended outcomes from interventions included clinical, health systems/organisation, changes in practices/behaviours/knowledge/attitudes, and wider social and educational goals. We identified three demi-regularities (semi-predictable patterns or pathways of programme functioning): participatory design based on valuing different sources of expertise; dynamic adaptation of intervention to context; and community participation in arts-based approaches. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that arts-based, nurturing care interventions have greater potential when they include local knowledge, embed into existing infrastructures and there is a clear plan for ongoing resourcing of the intervention. Studies with better documentation of the lessons learnt, regarding the intervention delivery process and the power dynamics involved, are needed to better understand what works, for whom and in which contexts.
Nicola Kay Gale, Kalim Ahmed, Niélé Hawa Diarra et al.
An estimated 650 million girls and women alive today married before their 18th birthday. Referred to as girl child marriage, the formal or informal union of the girl-child before age 18, the practice is increasingly recognized as a key roadblock to global health, development, and gender equality. Although more research than ever has focused on girl child marriage, an important gap remains in deconstructing the construct. Through an extensive review of primary and secondary sources, including legal documents, peer-reviewed articles, books, and grey literature across disciplines, we explore what the term "girl child marriage" means and why it more accurately captures current global efforts than other terms like early, teenage, or adolescent marriage. To do this, we dive into different framings on marriage, children, and gender. We find that there has been historical change in the understanding of girl child marriage in published literature since the late 1800s, and that it is a political, sociocultural, and value-laden term that serves a purpose in different contexts at different moments in time. The lack of harmonized terminology, particularly in the global public health, prevents alignment amongst different stakeholders in understanding what the problem is in order to determine how to measure it and create solutions on how to address it. Our intent is to encourage more intentional use of language in global public health research.
BACKGROUND: Nurturing care interventions have the potential to promote health and development in early childhood. Amagugu Asakhula was designed to promote developmentally important dietary and movement behaviours among children of preschool age (3-5 years) in South Africa. An initial formative study in Cape Town found the intervention to be feasible and acceptable when delivered by community health workers (CHWs) linked to a community-based organisation. This study evaluated the delivery of the Amagugu Asakhula intervention by CHWs linked to a public sector primary health care facility in Soweto, as this mode of delivery could have more potential for sustainability and scalability. METHODS: A qualitative design was utilised to assess feasibility, acceptability, adoption, appropriateness, implementation, fidelity and context. CHWs (n = 14) delivered the intervention to caregivers (n = 23) of preschool-age children in Soweto over 6 weeks. Following the completion of the intervention, focus group discussions were held with CHWs and caregivers. Further data were obtained through observations, study records and key informant interviews (n = 5). Data were analysed using deductive thematic analysis guided by a process evaluation framework. RESULTS: The delivery of the Amagugu Asakhula intervention through CHWs linked to a primary health care facility in Soweto was not found to be feasible due to contextual challenges such as late payment of salaries influencing CHW performance and willingness to deliver the intervention. CHWs expressed dissatisfaction with their general working conditions and were thus reluctant to take on new tasks. Despite barriers to successful delivery, the intervention was well received by both CHWs and caregivers and was considered a good fit with the CHWs' scope of work. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these findings, delivery of the Amagugu Asakhula intervention is not recommended through public sector CHWs in South Africa. This feasibility study informs the optimisation of implementation and supports further testing of the intervention's effectiveness when delivered by CHWs linked to community-based organisations. The present study further demonstrates how implementation challenges can be identified through qualitative feasibility studies and subsequently addressed prior to large-scale trials, avoiding the wasting of research and resources.
Sonja Klingberg, Esther M. F. van Sluijs, Stephanie T. Jong et al.
This paper examines the relationship between exposure to a transmedia entertainment-education (EE) social and behavior change communication (SBCC) initiative with shifting child marriage-related social norms. Districts were selected purposively, whereas households were selected randomly. A total of 1102 households (n = 3905) with fathers, mothers, adolescent boys, and girls completed the baseline and endline survey. Logistic regression using panel data was conducted. There was a decline in the perceived prevalence of child marriage and dowry exchange within respondents’ communities at endline. For injunctive norms, fathers reported significantly higher levels of disapproval for child marriage at endline. However, the reverse was true for mothers and adolescent girls. Almost all respondents had a significantly lower odds of identifying rewards/benefits and punishments/consequences associated with rejecting child marriage at endline. Most respondents with exposure to Icchedana were more likely to report the importance of injunctive norms or expectations of others on their behaviors, than those who were not exposed. Exposure to EE contributes to improved articulation of and shifts in social norms and engenders normative changes at the population level.
BACKGROUND: Approximately 40% of children 3 to 4 years of age in low- and middle-income countries have suboptimal development and growth. Women's empowerment may help provide inputs of nurturing care for early development and growth by building caregiver capacity and family support. We examined the associations between women's empowerment and child development, growth, early learning, and nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). METHODS AND FINDINGS: We pooled data on married women (15 to 49 years) and their children (36 to 59 months) from Demographic and Health Surveys that collected data on child development (2011 to 2018) in 9 SSA countries (N = 21,434): Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, and Uganda. We constructed a women's empowerment score using factor analysis and assigned women to country-specific quintile categories. The child outcomes included cognitive, socioemotional, literacy-numeracy, and physical development (Early Childhood Development Index), linear growth (height-for-age Z-score (HAZ) and stunting (HAZ <-2). Early learning outcomes were number of parental stimulation activities (range 0 to 6) and learning resources (range 0 to 4). The nutrition outcome was child dietary diversity score (DDS, range 0 to 7). We assessed the relationship between women's empowerment and child development, growth, early learning, and nutrition using multivariate generalized linear models. On average, households in our sample were large (8.5 ± 5.7 members) and primarily living in rural areas (71%). Women were 31 ± 6.6 years on average, 54% had no education, and 31% had completed primary education. Children were 47 ± 7 months old and 49% were female. About 23% of children had suboptimal cognitive development, 31% had suboptimal socioemotional development, and 90% had suboptimal literacy-numeracy development. Only 9% of children had suboptimal physical development, but 35% were stunted. Approximately 14% of mothers and 3% of fathers provided ≥4 stimulation activities. Relative to the lowest quintile category, children of women in the highest empowerment quintile category were less likely to have suboptimal cognitive development (relative risk (RR) 0.89; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80, 0.99), had higher HAZ (mean difference (MD) 0.09; 95% CI 0.02, 0.16), lower risk of stunting (RR 0.93; 95% CI 0.87, 1.00), higher DDS (MD 0.17; 95% CI 0.06, 0.29), had 0.07 (95% CI 0.01, 0.13) additional learning resources, and received 0.16 (95% CI 0.06, 0.25) additional stimulation activities from their mothers and 0.23 (95% CI 0.17 to 0.29) additional activities from their fathers. We found no evidence that women's empowerment was associated with socioemotional, literacy-numeracy, or physical development. Study limitations include the possibility of reverse causality and suboptimal assessments of the outcomes and exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Women's empowerment was positively associated with early child cognitive development, child growth, early learning, and nutrition outcomes in SSA. Efforts to improve child development and growth should consider women's empowerment as a potential strategy.
Lilia Bliznashka, Ifeyinwa E. Udo, Christopher Robert Sudfeld et al.
From April 20–30, 2020, during a nationwide lockdown, the Population Council Bangladesh conducted the first round of a rapid phone-based survey on COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, and practices. The survey randomly selected girls who had provided phone numbers during enrollment in a skills-building program that began before the pandemic. The survey’s objective was to assess the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent lives and to design programs that would contribute to protecting girls and meet social distancing guidelines imposed by the government. Phone interviews were conducted with 479 girls living in the districts of Chapainawabganj, Kushtia, and Sherpur who were participants in a program focused on reducing child marriage by increasing school attendance and grade progression among girls ages 12–15. A follow-up survey was conducted from June 12–22, 2020, prior to the introduction of virtual skills sessions as school closure and social distancing protocols were in effect. The nationwide lockdown had been withdrawn by that time. A third round of remote data collection took place September 5–11, 2020. This brief presents the findings and comparisons from the three rounds of phone surveys.
In this comment, we examine the implications of decolonization on decision making in childcare (Kgatla, 2018). Self-empowerment as a cornerstone of change, long part of community empowerment, has finally achieved recognition within the literature on global health and nurturing care (Charani et al., 2022; Sharm & Sam-Agudu, 2023). Varied perspectives discuss the global benefits of shifting responsibility in decision making, for humanizing of the lives of the global majority and creating more sustainable change (Affun-Adegbulu & Adegbulu., 2020; de Laat et al., 2023; Martin, 2016). There still remains much more to be said, to be clarified and understood, before the imbalances and disconnect in responsibility and accountability still inherent in the current framing of child health and welfare systems are removed. The authors of this comment, both psychologists working in the Global South, have engaged in dialogue for more than a decade, examining our individual and shared experiences of intervention, research and therapy, reflecting on our professional challenges and achievements in the field of global Early Childhood Development (ECD). These discussions have examined the complexity in the process of the decolonization of early childhood frameworks. Within ECD those closest to the child, the parents and guardians, are held, for the most part, accountable for the failure to adequately address children's needs. However, the responsibility, the position of power, for selecting best practices is taken up by those who control the resources, the expert external to family, community and often too, external to the culture. As we observe this relationship play out, we have increasingly understood that sustainable change can only be built on a rebalancing of responsibilities, and in generating a direct connection between responsibility and accountability (Rasheed, 2021). Supporting this tangible shift in decision-making will create a more direct relationship between informed care, the context and its socio-cultural, environmental, and economic demands and the changing needs of the child (Krapels et al., 2020; Muhamedjonova et al., 2021). The evidence in the field is predominantly informed by randomized trials conducted under controlled settings with limited generalizability (owing to the bias of being published in medical journals, as noted by Scheidecker et al., 2023). This is where we believe anthropology has a lot to offer and an excellent multi-disciplinary opportunity for incorporating their methods to understand the complexities of human nature so we avoid making simplistic assumptions of the lives of millions of children in the Global South. In this comment, we continue our process of reflective practice through which our insights have developed, sharing where our dialogue has reached in response to Scheidecker and colleagues' (2023) critique of the field of Global ECD. Over the years, my understanding of decolonization in global health research has evolved. Initially, it seemed complex, but observing colonial behaviors in a collaborator opened my eyes to explore decolonization in the context of global health in Early Childhood Development (ECD), where I work in mostly Western collaborations. As I've delved deeper and contributed to this discourse in global health journals, I've noticed that the momentum behind decolonization in global health is mainly driven by individuals based in the Global North tied to existing systems for survival. They suggest adapting to these structures. However, I believe we should seize this moment to create a new system that values the unique cultures and strengths of the Global South. In academia, the focus on metrics like "publish or perish," prestige, and power has overshadowed community and impact. Decolonization, for me, means leading on our terms. Our systems and aspirations differ significantly, and we shouldn't compromise our identities for Northern resources. Decolonization requires that we expand and embrace our own regional systems that reduce inequities. Ultimately, decolonization, as I understand it, is about reclaiming power in the South (Rasheed, 2023). Our focus should shift towards recognizing, valuing, and applying behaviors that align with our own criteria for validation. In essence, decolonization is the path to a more equitable, inclusive, and self-empowered future in global health and beyond. Adding to this, exclusion, whether unconscious or deliberate, leads to inherently unstable systems. The shift as you describe is therefore not just a right, but a necessity. In the process of decolonization, however, the danger is to merely shift to another dominant perspective. You discuss this in your previous paper (Manjpara, 2022). As with the artist, the scientist who chooses not to be constrained by the dominant perspective will be "starved" professionally, be excluded from discussion, and from access to resources. The non-conformist scientist is marginalized by being labeled as "difficult" or "eccentric." This labeling can be even more destructive; it can include tags such as uneducated or, worse, uneducable. Unfortunately, I have observed this "ghostlining" (Krapel et al., 2020), the removal of people from a conversation because their voices are less valued, in global health forums on many occasions. This same process of ghostlining is evident in the rationalization given for not including the community voice directly in decision-making. We have both faced pressure from reviewers to supply references from the Global North that substantiate/validate our methods, processes, tools, and reflections. But those narratives do not address the history of the knowledge, wisdom, and experience of the Global South. In my lived experience, scientific activity is actually constrained by a focus on searching for "the" universal truth. The exclusion of other world ideas and experiences culminates in re-centering, while de-centering can create infinite power for change by reflecting on multiple perspectives and referencing across scientific traditions. Which approach did you have in mind when you spoke of validation? I had decentering in mind. To me, decentering is a psychological process where we shift our perspective away from ourselves as the central focus. Instead of solely considering our point of view, we value the perspectives and experiences of others, fostering empathy, understanding, and inclusivity. Even in the Global South, there's a tendency to measure success against Western standards, rooted in our colonial past. This mindset infiltrates our lives, reinforced by a parallel system of resources and power controlled by the North. This reliance on external validation perpetuates mental colonization, where our voices and experiences are primarily validated by the Global North. However, I've realized that my reality and struggles are different from those in the North. I've shifted my focus to peers who share similar experiences, reclaiming our narratives and directing the discourse to what truly matters to us. Seeking Northern validation can be detrimental, overshadowing our voices and experiences. Validation becomes a tool of control, influencing one's sense of self-worth. We have to accept the fact that external resources or from the North are not meant to build us; they are meant to distract us by engaging us in non-meaningful yet comfortable work. It's time to challenge this reliance and define our worth on our terms, independent of external validation. As someone whose family was from the Global North but whose lived experiences are largely in the Global South, what is your conceptualization of decolonization? Colonization refers in general terms to the appropriation of space, and so in terms of science, space is the thinking space. Simply put, then, I conceive decolonization as the creation of an open thinking space where the diversity of thoughts is intentionally included and equitably valued. In The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley (2010) wrote: "There are things known, and things unknown, and in between are the doors to perception." In the in-between, paradigms of thought can evolve that are influenced by a much broader range of experience and knowledge than science currently draws on to develop theory and frameworks. The irony is that science, ostensibly about breaking through boundaries of knowledge, is all too often trapped within boundaries of its own making. This is the tyranny that follows the imposition of standard practice, when those standards do not address multiple settings, values and needs. It is what I fear from Artificial Intelligence (AI). Can we trust those who set the algorithms to ensure sufficient diversity of perspectives and goals to reach a new frontier of thinking? AI is likely to continue the colonization of thought unless the algorithm is set for learning to occur freely through the examination of all wants and all values and considers the consequences of all possible choices, intentionally including those whose perspectives have previously been ignored. Without this shift, we'll never solve our problems because we are unlikely to find out what the problem actually is. When I visualize the word framework, I see scaffolding and reflect on the way scaffolding has been used to describe both continuity and flexibility in help and support given directed at children's learning (Verenikina, 2003). Early childhood is the time of the most rapid change, and growth. Any framework that has a predetermined direction perpetuates colonization, constraining that growth. While a decolonized framework recognizes, without fear or prejudice, the responsibility of each to find out what they need to understand, to fix and manage our own needs. Within a decolonized approach, an ECD framework will provide support that is responsive to different perspectives, places, times, objectives, and different sets of resources. In implementation design, for ECD as for many other human systems, there is what amounts to an obsession with uniform systems, controlled centrally. The justification is the need to make comparisons across and between contexts, and as one UN representative described, "We are the ones responsible for the children." Universal frameworks, it seems, are commonly adopted for the convenience of large international organizations, whether implementers or funders, to streamline the management of their portfolios, ignoring the ultimate and unavoidable power of the parent to place the specific needs of the child at the core. If you put this into everyday language, the universal framework tells the parent what others want them to do, in a specified way, with little consideration of personal knowledge of the child or context. What then happens can then be counted up, to report on global data, whose meaning and targets may hold little relevance to the family at the focus of the work. That is not science; it is an appropriation of my responsibilities as a parent and an appropriation of both my physical and mental space. The application of universal standards both builds on and perpetuates a narrow focus of responsibility and accountability. It is colonization at its most extreme. Only when different perspectives are acknowledged and valued will we move towards understanding the full panoply of human potential and be able to select solutions that are valued and work in context, sustainably over time (Kreuter et al., 1999; Shaw & Silva, 2023). Adopting a humanistic and realistic framework to understand the impact of colonial legacies on ECD is essential. As you say, it's crucial to involve the people directly impacted in discussions about interventions and it should be more than a superficial act of seeking their feedback on a designed intervention (based on Global North perspectives). Engaging with the beneficiaries should begin before you start designing with an intent to explore their priorities. This approach provides valuable insights into the challenges and potential solutions. However, there's often a disconnect between those addressing the issues and the affected communities largely driven by academic incentives to conduct a randomized trial and getting a publication in a high-impact journal. While we use community members to collect data, their role in decision-making remains limited. Second, we also need to ask how we can truly measure the effectiveness of interventions and prepare individuals for the future. The focus of the current interventions driven by the Global North are those living in abject poverty in the South, this overlooks the needs of middle-class families. Interventions tailored to these families, who have more resources and support, may be more impactful than those for the most disadvantaged. Designing interventions that fit their context and requirements is crucial. Community members understand the complexities and nuances of their challenges in a way that external observers cannot, and decision-makers distant from the situation invariably do not, in the quest for simple solutions, for silver bullets. Given the opportunity to share their intimate knowledge of, for example, political and environmental disruptions that disconnect people from their familiar environments, we have both experienced communities framing potential and acceptable options to address their complex situations. Exclusion from solution design extends to exclusion from data use, with outsiders gathering information, and compiling it in documents, most commonly in English. We are, thus, far from sharing our learning wisely. As you pointed out earlier, the path to achieving distributed leadership, genuine shared decision-making, remains distant. Decolonization is not about continually critiquing the Global North or emphasizing their wrongs and the need for their change, as I've encountered in the discourse, I've been part of. In fact, it reminds me of a valuable lesson you once shared with me when I had to present in front of a committee dominated by the perspective of the Global North. You wisely conveyed that the focus should not be on how "wrong" someone else is but rather how right your approach is. This lesson has profoundly resonated with me. It reinforces the idea that the true change begins with us, within our own systems, our communities, and the reclamation of our power. It's an unshakable responsibility we must shoulder, and there's simply no alternative. Psychologists, and this brings us to our last question, refer to the community as clients, and the core of our approach is empowerment. They, the clients, are the true leaders, shaping the way they want their lives to change. We serve as guides and facilitators, and our primary role involves asking questions that enable others to delve deeper into their challenges. Our fundamental assumption is that the solutions reside within the individuals we work with, our clients. This perspective motivates me to emphasize the need to introduce psychology from this vantage point, to rehumanize global health, to foster empathy, and to accept the inherent uncertainties. It's about placing the community or individual we aim to assist at the heart of our efforts, acknowledging their abundance of solutions. Our role should pivot from what aid agencies have traditionally done and shift towards addressing systemic issues, focusing on system strengthening. Sensitization and dialogue with these systems on how best to support these individuals should supersede simply doing things for them, to generate informative research and favorable outcomes. You raise the importance of systems. An example of this, for me in the global health/ECD space are discussions on maternal depression (Stewart, 2007). All behavioral phenomena, while communicated simply through the use of labels such as depression, manifest themselves not as categorical phenomena, but along a continuum of experience that is inextricably intertwined within current and past experiences and the system which surrounds it. This points to the solution primarily lying, as you say, in creating systemic shifts in the context in which people live (Fearon et al., 2017). As a psychologist with a specialization in assessment, I am keen to shift the role of measurement from the constraints of categorization to define risk that has generated a process of resource allocation (e.g., educational support) based on numeric scores, towards better understanding of behavioral continuums and pathways of resilience (Gaidhane et al., 2020; Holding, Fotso & Elungata, 2018; Holding et al., 2018). The de-colonized approach of using information would generate; empathy through access to multiple perspectives; and distributed leadership through uncovering meaning and sharing this understanding more broadly (Mignolo, 2009; Watkins et al., 2023). Information fosters agency and empowerment, shifting the role of individuals to being accountable to and for themselves. Back to that idea of scaffolding, the ability to change roles as the system changes is something that I have observed simply has not happened with most international organizations. There is a tendency to maintain that exact same type of contribution until the money runs out, and then there's nothing that has been left behind to ensure sustainability. This failure is, as you point out, in part due to the failure of the community to actively build their roles and responsibilities. As a psychologist I hope to make a contribution to creating fluid and dynamic systems by stimulating reflective practice (Gaidhane et al., 2023). I hope that this paper contributes to that process. I hope so too. Frankly, throughout my 15 years of engagement in global health, I often felt like an anomaly, questioning my sense of belonging in this field. However, I've come to recognize that the study of human behavior should be a crucial component of global health and ECD training. It has the potential to rehumanize the field.
