UNESCO Early Childhood Cooperating Center	Consultative Group Central Asia Regional Representative

As the magnitude of donor and international agencies have changed over the past decade, all agencies have developed strategic partnerships with indigenous organizations to foster local capacity to plan, execute and sustain development programs. As the norms of assistance change, AÇEV with its commitment to social development has taken part in collaborative programs.

Since 1997, AÇEV has been serving as the Central Asian Regional Representative for the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development (CG). Currently, the CG is focusing on strengthening its regional networks across the globe. The aim of the Regional Networks is to gather and disseminate information, provide technical assistance and advocate on Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) as well as networking in this area.

In 1999, AÇEV signed an agreement with UNESCO under the UNESCO Early Childhood Partnership Program and was appointed as the Early Childhood Cooperating Center for Central Asia. Under the umbrella of the Partnerships Program, particular emphasis is placed on developing strategies and mechanisms for the efficient transfer of knowledge and for its application to the specific early childhood conditions and needs in developing countries.

The Central Asia Region is still in the transition period after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During this transition period, the countries in the region are facing limitations and difficulties in balancing their national resources that would have a direct impact on the provision of public services such as education and health. In the region, Child Care problems are strongly associated with the transition period, and great pressure is experienced by officials, service providers and families who do not have sufficient resources for early childhood activities. Therefore, AÇEV set its primary objective toward the Central Asia Initiative as to facilitate a network on ECCD to gather and share information by providing appropriate discussion platforms and environment.

AÇEV will focus on the strategic areas set during the Consultative Group Annual Meeting held in Paris, 1999 while facilitating the ECCD Network for Central Asia:

Role of Cooperating Centers as early childhood clearing house and networking:

The role of AÇEV will be to act as a clearing house for information on ECCD by facilitating information exchange in the region not only between those involved in the field but also to develop collaborative efforts with other sectors of society.

Development of indicators on ECCD:
UNESCO considers that indicators (not statistics) of ECCD are the most basic and useful tool that could allow policy makers to make clear judgment of their own situations related to the area. Indicators can be a tool to help abate the current skepticism among policy makers about the value of investment in ECCD. In this respect UNESCO Early Childhood and Family Unit and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics is launching a program to strengthen national capacity for producing and managing early childhood statistics and indicators.

Generation of policy on family education as an integral part of ECCD:
Family/parent education in member states is not integrated at the policy and systems level as part of ECCD programs. Nor is there a clear intellectual direction concerning how to view parents vis-à-vis the state as providers of early childhood experiences and how to build partnerships between them in light of the political, socio-economic and cultural changes of the developing world. To improve this situation, AÇEV is planning a project to generate and implement policy information and knowledge on parent/family education.