The Nurturing State: How Governments Can Promote Early Childhood Development in the Middle East and North Africa

Learning poverty -- or the fraction of 10-year-old children who cannot read a simple paragraph -- stood at 63 percent in the Middle East and North Africa region in 2019. Nearly 1 out of every 3 young people (ages 15-24) are idle, neither studying nor working, and the prevalence of mental illness among adolescents in the region is above the world average. These pathologies plaguing school-age children and youth in the region have much earlier origins. Their paths to weak learning, diminished mental health, and depressed labor market prospects most likely started in the early childhood -- the period from gestation to age 6 -- a very critical period when the brain is still forming and when children pick up skills, such as early language and numeracy, that set them up for learning related skills in school, such as reading and mathematics, and for skills such as focus, perseverance, and emotional regulation that prepare them for the labor market and lay the foundations for future mental health. This report makes the case for all governments in the region to play a greater role in promoting early childhood development -- specifically in (1) ensuring efficient and equitable provision of services for children under age 6, (2) coordinating the different sectors that tend to provide services for this age group and partnering with non-state providers, and (3) regulating and monitoring the quality of early childhood services and the development of children. The report documents the extent to which governments currently fulfill these roles in supporting children's healthy physical growth, social-emotional and mental health, and early learning, and in mitigating the potential for permanent harm that arises from poverty, maltreatment, and conflict. The report articulates a basic minimum package for children focused on early learning, early health and nutrition, and the protection of children from poverty. It also proposes roles for a government to function as a 'nurturing state' that supports the health, skills, and productive potential of the region's youngest residents and future workforce.