The Primokiz approach
What Primokiz is
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An evidence-based programme
developed by the Jacobs Foundation to increase young children’s access to quality early childhood services.
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A phased methodology for local governments
to improve their services for young children in a strategic, participatory and responsive way.
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A licensed programme
The Jacobs Foundation awarded ISSA the licence to use Primokiz across countries. ISSA sub-licenses it to Members and partners in a specific country, after a structured know-how transfer process.
It has been used by Jacobs Foundation in Switzerland (in partnership with Fondation suisse pour la santé (RADIX) and Germany (in partnership with the German Children and Youth Foundation (DKJS)), and by ISSA in Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, and currently in Czechia and Bulgaria — in municipalities of every size, from cities of over a hundred thousand people to villages of under seven hundred.
Before ISSA held the licence, the Jacobs Foundation ran Primokiz in Switzerland — launching in 2012 with 18 small and medium-sized cities and three cantons, then moved to a second phase of expansion in 2016 to 80 cities and municipalities. In 2015, Primokiz was introduced in Germany, where 20 municipalities adopted the approach through the national Qualität vor Ort programme. As of 2026, in Switzerland, Primokiz is implemented in more than 220 municipalities.
ISSA was awarded the Primokiz license in 2018.
The four things that make it work
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Political will
Political will is not a nice-to-have. It is the first phase of the method, and the factor the evaluations return to most often when explaining why some communities finished the process successfully and others did not.
It legitimises the process, stating that early childhood is on the local political agenda. It makes it likely that the strategy will actually be adopted by decisionmakers. It makes a favourable funding decision possible. And it gives the work a chance of outlasting the project.
Where it was missing, the process stalled — and the evaluations say so directly. From Hungary:
In the case of all settlements, it was noticeable that the interest and full commitment of the leadership of the municipality is the key to the long-term success of the programme.
Alongside it sits a discipline: keeping the political agenda connected to the programmatic agenda at every phase, so that technical work always has a decision waiting for it and a decision always has technical work behind it.
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A comprehensive, child- and family-centred view
The process starts from children’s and families’ rights and needs, not from institutional boundaries. It counts formal, non-formal and informal services alike, across different sectors, spots gaps and shortages, and even unknown or invisible problems. And it holds to a single test: does every child have access to, and actually benefit from, high-quality services in the community where they live?
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Cross-sectoral collaboration
Under the leadership of the local authority, data and expertise come together from every sector providing early childhood services. The process models a culture of networking, dialogue and collaboration — and it models cross-sectoral local leadership, which in many places never existed before.
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Participation and local ownership
Stakeholders are involved throughout, not consulted at the end:
- cross-sectoral local action teams
- consultation at every key phase
- data collection and integration
- development of needs-based, data-informed, locally relevant strategies
- validation of priorities and measures
- validation of the implementation plan
- implementation of measures
- monitoring and evaluation
And running through all of it: the voices of families — including children — and of frontline professionals are included. In several municipalities, this was the first time anyone had asked parents what they needed.
The seven phases
The phases alternate deliberately between political decisions and technical work. Each piece of technical work exists to enable the next decision; each decision releases the resources for the next piece of work.
- Political
Phase 1: Decision and preparation
- Programmatic
Phase 2: Ensuring the capacity and coordination infrastructure
- Programmatic
Phase 3: Situation analysis
- Political
Phase 4: Mandate to develop a strategy
- Programmatic
Phase 5: Strategy development
- Political
Phase 6: Decision to implement
- Programmatic
Phase 7: Implementation, evaluation and reporting
Evaluation feeds back: phase 7 starts the cycle again from phase 1.
| Phase | Level | What happens | Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Decision and preparation | Political | The local authority decides to pursue the process, issues a mandate | A decision has been reached to set up a coordinator and a cross-sectoral teams to draw up a situation analysis and early childhood strategy |
| 2. Ensuring the capacity and coordination infrastructure | Programmatic | Local cross-sectoral team formed, plan and timeline agreed, all actors informed, capacity built | Framework conditions defined and the programme announced |
| 3. Situation analysis | Programmatic | A locally led analysis of what exists, what’s needed and what’s missing — with sector professionals, families and community members | A report on the situation analysis, indicating needed action, is complete |
| 4. Mandate to develop a strategy | Political | The analysis goes to the council; a political decision authorises a strategy | The situation analysis report is endorsed by the council. A political decision has been reached to formulate a strategy based on the analysis. |
| 5. Strategy development | Programmatic | Vision, key objectives, prioritised measures and an implementation plan | Report on the strategy and implementation plan is complete |
| 6. Decision to implement | Political | Council approves the strategy and the budget; a binding implementation mandate is issued | The decision is made and the budgeted resources are in place |
| 7. Implementation, evaluation and reporting | Programmatic | Measures delivered, progress evaluated, reports made, the cycle begins again | The strategy is being implemented and periodically evaluated |
The seven steps, in plain language
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Get the buy-in
from the local authorities.
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Set up a local cross-sectoral team
led by the local government.
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Carry out a locally led situation and needs analysis
, bringing together specialists and practitioners from across the early childhood sectors, local government representatives, private and public providers, families and community members — and integrating existing data with new data.
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Decide jointly on short-, medium- and long-term priorities
for improving services across sectors, based on the analysed data and needs.
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Develop a cross-sectoral early childhood strategy and an action plan
reflecting those priorities.
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Approve, fund and implement
the action plan, promoting local partnerships and stakeholder involvement.
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Monitor
the implementation.
Inside the situation analysis
This is the heart of the method, and the part communities consistently say changed how they see themselves. It answers four questions.
What is the context?
At minimum: births per year over the past four years; the number of children under 2, aged 3–4, and aged 5–6; the number of families with a child under 6 in which at least one parent does not speak the national language; and information on specific target groups relevant to planning — particularly children living in poverty or known to the welfare system. Where families are unevenly distributed by language or social characteristics, a map.
The data are gathered in a way that allows them to be updated periodically. Several Romanian municipalities re-ran their questionnaires two years later to refresh the picture and review their priorities.
What resources exist?
Every programme and service grouped as: programmes for children; programmes for parents and children; programmes for parents; venues for play and interaction; and programmes in adjacent areas. For each, who provides it, how it is funded, who it is for, how many places it has, how well attended it is, who attends it, how well resourced is (infrastructure, staff, materials), what level of quality, and — crucially — who is being reached, who isn’t, and who should be.
Information comes directly from providers and from parents, through questionnaires, workshops and focus groups. Particular attention goes to whether anyone has ever evaluated the service.
How well do the pieces connect?
Cooperation and coordination between actors — both for individual cases and for wider groups. How and where families find out what is available, whether they are eligible, and how to get in. And what opportunities families have to shape the services themselves.
What action is needed?
The strengths and weaknesses of the current picture, and a clear statement of what the community should do about it — including quality assurance, evaluation and funding.
Then: from analysis to strategy
The strategy sets a vision and key objectives, then defines prioritised measures across five areas:
- services and programmes
- cooperation and networking
- information and participation
- quality assurance and evaluation
- sustainability — structures and funding
For every measure, four questions have to be answered: When can this be considered finished or successful? What is being done to assure quality? What effort is being made to reach families under socioeconomic stress? And how will this be made permanent — through legislation, budget planning, or a written administrative responsibility?
Each measure is then set out in a matrix: the action, who is responsible, what it costs, its priority, and when it starts and ends.
Communities have used a common set of strategic objectives, adapted locally. In Slovakia both municipalities adopted these five:
- From birth on, every child should be afforded equitable opportunities leading to a successful start in life.
- Responsible parties in the early childhood sector, along with local authorities, institutions and organisations, should form networks and communicate systematically with one another.
- The municipality should provide an adequate number of high-quality early childhood programmes and services, in line with existing needs.
- The municipality should proactively pursue its early childhood policy.
- The municipality should provide regular information on the strategies and activities it pursues.
What support looks like
Technical knowledge
- The Primokiz Handbook — the model, a phase-by-phase guide, a template for the situation analysis and strategy, and eighteen worked illustrations
- The Primokiz Resource Package — presentations; templates for partnership agreements and calls for interest; terms of reference and role profiles for facilitators, coordinators and local action teams; data collection tools; sample situation analyses; sample local strategies; documented achievements; and lessons learned and testimonies from previous implementations
Technical expertise
- Management of the process
- Capacity building and coaching for local facilitators and coordinators
- Expert facilitation
- Ongoing local support to ensure quality implementation.
How long it takes, and what it asks of you
We would rather be honest about this up front than have a community discover it in month eight.
Time. The Primokiz Handbook estimates roughly six months for a situation analysis and one and a half to two and a half years for the whole process. In practice: Slovenian situation analyses took between four and twelve months; Romanian ones averaged twelve. Hungary ran the whole process in a single year, and most municipalities reached a draft strategy rather than an adopted one — chiefly because of the local elections and, the evaluation argues, because of variation in mayoral commitment rather than the compressed timetable itself.
People. Romanian local teams worked best at 10–15 members with specific assigned responsibilities. Across 22 Romanian communities, more than 250 people took part.
Political attention. Mayors who attended the working meetings got results. Mayors who delegated and checked in occasionally got less. The Hungarian and Romanian evaluations are both emphatic on this.
A willingness to be surprised. Almost every community discovered something about itself it had not known. A 300% rise in births in two years. Ninety-one recorded cases of children affected by domestic violence, up from one three years earlier. Three hundred and thirty preschoolers not attending kindergarten at all. Services that existed, worked well, and that nobody had heard of.
That last discovery is the most common finding in this entire body of work, across all four countries.