ISSA to Organize High Level Pre-Conference Advocacy Roundtable

ISSA and the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation are pleased to announce a Roundtable on Investing in Early Childhood: the most effective use of a nation’s resources on 14 October 2009 in Bucharest – an event organized in partnership with UNICEF, the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development, and the Open Society Institute. The Roundtable is organized as a curtain raiser for ISSA’s 2009 Annual Conference. The Conference, co-hosted by the Center for Education and Professional Development, Romania, will be organized under the patronage of the President of Romania, H. E. Traian Bãsescu, between 14–17 October 2009 in Bucharest - http://www.issa.nl/events.html. Leading policy makers from Romania and other countries in Eastern Europe and the CIS will participate in the Roundtable.

The objectives of the Roundtable will be to:

• Consider reasons for investing in quality Early Childhood Development and Education services for all young children;
• Identify compelling examples of successful investments in integrated early childhood services and public/private partnerships that helped countries expand and improve their services; explore what made these investments in early childhood services more effective than others; and
• Discuss possible funding mechanisms and how to mitigate negative effects of the current global financial downturn on children’s services.

Roundtable Delegates will engage in dialogue with their peers, corporate and civil society representatives, selected practitioners, and senior experts from diverse fields associated with early childhood development. Presenters will include:

• Nobel Laureate, James J. Heckman, PhD, will present compelling economic arguments for investing in the development of young children. (To be confirmed.)
• Prof. Nathan A. Fox from the University of Maryland will offer perspectives from the science base of child development and their relevance to social and economic policy, stressing the enduring effects of early experience on child development.
• Dr. John Bennett, Senior Consultant with UNICEF, OSI and Roma Education Fund, will speak about investment patterns in the OECD countries drawn from his experiences as the former project director of OECD’s Starting Strong reviews of early childhood policies and programs in industrialized countries.
• A representative the Romanian Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation will present Romania’s Early Childhood Education Reform Project.

The presentations will be followed by discussions in which delegates will be invited to react to points raised by the experts and to relate them to their knowledge of their own country contexts. Delegates will be asked to showcase examples of successful investments in integrated early childhood service approaches, as well as models of successful private-public partnerships. Participants will be invited to bring one-page descriptions of successful integrated or inter-sectoral services and public-private partnerships from their countries. These will be showcased during the Roundtable itself and in the resulting Roundtable Proceedings. The roundtable will be facilitated by Dr. Emily Vargas-Baron, Director of The RISE Institute, Washington, DC, who will also assist with the roundtable proceedings.

Outcomes of Roundtable discussions will be issued as Observations and Recommendations and will be presented at the Conference and later circulated to a wider audience of regional and national stakeholders.

For more information, please contact Liana Ghent, Executive Director, at lghent@issa.hu.