Introduction

The following article focuses on the analysis of the trends that Latin America is following in terms of early childhood development programmes (ECD) and how some innovations are shaping the debate. The relevance of this topic in terms of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their successor, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is that some key ECD programmes adopt a multi-sectorial and comprehensive approach to human development that relate to many of the development goals. They focus on child development while also aiming at achieving results that will improve the children's lives and opportunities in adulthood.

The article will start with a conceptualisation of ECD and an analysis of the importance and characteristics of these programmes and their characteristics in the region. There is evidence that suggests that intervening with social policies at early ages are among the most important public policies in terms of achieving equality. It has been proven that investing in the early stages of life, yields better and more equal outcomes in development for the society as a whole. Even if social protection policies in the region have been around for a long time, the integral approach to early childhood presents innovative ways to deliver greater impact and achieve different aspects of the region's SDG objectives.

Much of the debate on ECD and international development policy is currently focused on how to expand the services to extend the coverage. This debate was also promoted by the MDG philosophy of increasing coverage of basic services and this is certainly a challenge in Latin America where income inequality has also created inequalities at birth. Nevertheless, it is also important to reflect on the quality of the services in ECD and what works and what does not.

Unfortunately, impact studies that analyse the improvements of children's condition as solely the consequence of ECD programmes are not widely available. Many programmes have been studied in terms of the impact of certain components, such as the conditional cash transfers impact on poverty alleviation in Mexico or Colombia, or the impact of dietary supplement for children in Jamaica. Araujo et al refer to a recent study that performs a meta-analysis of evaluations on the impact of changes in delivery of childcare services.