Kusini Kwetu

By Vincent Mpepo, OUT

The Eastern Africa Regional Early Childhood Conference will start on 11^th to 14^th Mach, 2024 at Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre in Dar es Salaam and will involve participants from Tanzania and outside Tanzania.

According to the information from the organizers’ website, this years’ conference theme is ‘Investing in Early Childhood: Building Human Capital along the Life Course’ and it will be open to multisectoral stakeholders interested in improving early childhood outcomes.

“Policy Makers, CSOs/FBOs/CBOs, Grassroots Advocacy Organizations including Women and Youth Groups, Academia and Development Partner Organizations”, says part of the information from the website.

The conference will provide an opportunity for stakeholders and participants to take stock of the status of early childhood in the sub region, showcase innovative programs in the sub-region, foster dialogue that promotes knowledge exchange and learning and build consensus around key advocacy issues.

The conference presentations will be an in-person with different sessions to ensure wide and active participation and provide avenues for generating insights that will be taken up in the conference recommendations, final communication and plans for action.

The conference will employ plenary sessions where keynote presentations will be made along with panel sessions that spotlight country experiences, oral paper presentations in thematic break-out parallel sessions, round table discussions for smaller groups that allow for in-depth engagement and learning sessions.

Moreover, other presentation modalities are not limited to side events to support capacity building and joint planning for various interest groups.

These presentation modalities will enable groups to engage, network and build pathways for collaboration and partnerships that would take Early Childhood forward in the region and lastly exhibition of partner initiatives and sharing of materials and resources.

According to Dr. Evangeline Nderu, the conference is expected to receive participants from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Mozambique; South Africa and from outside Africa.

For more information visit: https://afecn.org/2024ear-conference

Group photos of rapporteurs which include students and a lecturer from the Aga Khan University during the orientation before the start of the conference. (Picture by Vincent Mpepo).