Building strategic intersectoral coalitions to advance early childhood development

Intersectoral action is key to improving early childhood development (ECD), yet major evidence gaps persist about how intersectoral policies interact with multi-level governance systems; how to engage communities, civil society, and children; and which factors support stakeholder coalitions. Few models of intersectoral action have been developed from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Under the Children in All Policies (CAP-2030) initiative, Argentina and Ghana have explored intersectoral responses to shared challenges around ECD. These countries’ differing governance systems and levels of political prioritisation of ECD offer an opportunity to compare the development of intersectoral coalitions as well as their integration, coherence, accountability, and effects.

This prospective policy analysis will assess a participatory, data-driven intervention to improve intersectoral ECD policy for children aged 0-8-years at sub-national level in 5 localities each in Argentina and Ghana. The five-stage intervention will use inclusive issue framing; deliberate co-production with public and non-public-sector actors, including children; and collaborative resource generation.

Employing the theoretical lens of collaborative governance, we will use mixed methods to address four objectives:

1. Explore how typologies of intersectoral action evolve in the context of differing political and fiscal power-sharing arrangements. Political economy analysis will be used to map institutional characteristics; stakeholder interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis will establish categories of intersectoral action across localities and assess their relationship with governance types.

2. Investigate whether intermediate process indicators of collaboration and partnership are aligned with intersectoral policy coherence, policy integration, and effects on early childhood development indicators. Qualitative and quantitative process indicators of stakeholder collaboration and partnership, measured at baseline and endline, will be compared with indicators of policy coherence and integration, evaluated using document analysis of final policies.

We will also explore changes in early childhood development outcomes through baseline/endline surveys with children aged 0-59 months and their caregivers in the project’s localities.

3. Analyse how the engagement of non-governmental actors including civil society, communities and children can be maximised using inclusive issue framing and participatory data systems. Engagement will be assessed using surveys administered at policy convenings, in-depth interviews, and non-participant observation, then compared across localities.

Issue framing and data use will be assessed via document analysis of final policies. Children’s involvement will be analysed using observation and document analysis of policy inputs and outputs.

4. Promote institutionalised learning and increase stakeholders’ knowledge of and self-efficacy to engage in intersectoral policy processes. We will assess learning through evaluations of stakeholder knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy before and after a bespoke training package. We will further strengthen stakeholder learning by disseminating results of our case studies.

This research will generate novel evidence on participatory, intersectoral policymaking in LMIC contexts, while strengthening the capacity of policymakers and institutions, and train researchers to advance health policy and systems research, including via South-South learning.