Program

This strand explores the practical realities of creating coherence across health, education, social protection, and family support systems. Sessions will dig into:

• How different governance levels (national, regional, municipal, community) can coordinate policies and services without duplication or gaps.
• What governance models (e.g. inter-ministerial committees, integrated agencies, municipal hubs) enable sustained collaboration.
• The role of “middle-tier” services—home visiting, childcare, family support, health interventions—as connectors between high-level policy and families’ everyday lives.
• Challenges such as overlapping mandates, siloed budgets, and political turnover—and how countries have managed to overcome them.

This strand focuses on the money, mechanisms, and mandates that either support or undermine integrated systems (national, regional, local, program/service level). It will address:

• How countries budget for early childhood across ministries and how spending patterns affect equity?
• Examples of financing strategies that prioritize prevention and holistic support rather than fragmented interventions.
• How to ensure that policies are not only well-designed but adequately resourced for implementation at scale.
• The role of data, monitoring, and evaluation in showing whether resources are making the intended impact.
• Ways to leverage international and EU-level funding streams for systemic integration.

This strand places the emphasis on inclusion, collaboration, and shared ownership. It will explore:

• How families, communities, practitioners/service providers contribute to shaping policies that affect them?
• Examples of participatory governance–citizens’ assemblies, parent councils, practitioner-researcher partnerships–that give voice to those often left out.
• Public-private partnerships: NGOs and civil society as active contributors to systemic integrated solutions. Strategies for scaling up successful local innovations to inform regional or national policy.
• Cross-country dialogues on what actors at different levels can do differently to advance integration.