Chapter 07: Accelerating Progress, Together

7.1ACTING NOW, ACTING TOGETHER

The journey now shifts from individual effort to collective action. It’s about how your role, strengthened by the foundations laid throughout this Blueprint, now connects with others to activate a coordinated, responsive early learning system.

We are moving beyond isolated heroes to a network powered by shared systems and tools, mutual accountability and continuous learning. In every system value is exchanged, each actor offers something essential and, in turn, benefits from the contribution of others. When these exchanges increase and improve over time, they induce network effects, generating momentum far greater than the sum of individual actions.

Now is the time to bring forward your voice, your context and your ideas. The tools exist, the platforms are ready and the partners are here to grow with you.

Let’s build a joyful and successful future for our children, together.

7.1.1CALLING ELP PROVIDERS

Every day, you create safe, loving spaces where children play, learn and grow. You solve problems with creativity and limited resources. You build trust with families who count on you, offering encouragement and feedback centred on every child’s growth. You are the foundation on which this entire system rests.

Now, we call on you to:

• Deepen connections with children, families and your wider community by creating safe, nurturing environments where children’s wellbeing is the priority.
• Embrace proven practices that support better outcomes, using tools like the ELOM and adopting technology to enhance your effectiveness and efficiency.
• Connect with other ELPs in your area to exchange ideas, offer mutual support and grow a strong local community of best practice. Together, we can create impact at scale.
• Make use of available services such as training, technology, support systems and subsidies to strengthen the quality of your programme, improve delivery and enable long-term sustainability.
• Provide feedback on these services so the ecosystem can better meet your needs and the needs of the children you serve.

With the support of families and partners, extend your reach so that more children can benefit from your care. Grow with the ecosystem. Reach more families. Help ensure every child has access to the quality early learning they deserve.

7.1.2CALLING FAMILIES

You give your children a name, a sense of belonging and their mother tongue. You provide the warmth of home, the comfort of family and the essentials of food, shelter and safety. You are their first teacher, introducing them to words, stories, songs and the spark of imagination. You know how to seek out what’s best for your child, whether healthcare, nourishment, protection or education.

The learning that happens in your home through everyday conversations, play and care is the foundation for everything else. ELPs build on what you have already begun and it is important that you build trust with ELPs, working hand-in-hand to support your child’s growth, confidence and success. Your contributions, financial and otherwise, help sustain your local ELP. In return, ELPs become part of your village of care. You engage with them respectfully, investing in them as they invest in your child’s future.

Now, we call on you to:

• Enrol every child in early learning and ensure they attend regularly. These early years are critical for lifelong success and wellbeing.
• Partner actively with your ELP. Learn how to support your child’s development in a safe, loving home. Ask for guidance on play, storytelling and nutrition.
• Ask for feedback on your child’s progress. What milestones should you watch for? What strengths are emerging? What extra support might they need?
• Support your ELP together with other families. Help them thrive as a trust community asset. Advocate for early learning and share its value with others.

Together, we can ensure every child has the strong foundation they need to grow, learn and thrive.

7.1.3CALLING ELP PARTNERS

You have helped build a rich, diverse and caring early learning ecosystem through practical tools, training and proven programmes that have deepened quality and expanded access across the country. You have driven innovation, solved complex challenges and developed solutions that improve early learning at the frontline.

Your investment in research, monitoring and data collection has laid the foundation for much of what we now know about what works for young children. Through partnerships with ELPs and community-based providers, you have extended reach where it’s needed most, sustained by local and international funding.

Now, we call on you to:

• Take on the challenge of scale, moving beyond scaling what has worked in limited contexts to building an ecosystem that reaches every child, everywhere.
• Collaborate to expand quality access, particularly in underserved communities and priority districts. Align with others on where and how to grow provision, share resources and IP and leverage joint platforms to drive efficiency and impact.
• Adopt ELOM as a shared standard for measuring child outcomes, and use the Thrive by Five Index to guide action. Data-driven collaboration is key to ensuring more children are developmentally on track by age five.
• Strengthen the Networks of Care Closest to the Child by working closely with ELPs, families and other ELP partners. Step beyond organisational lines and brand identities to ensure more ELPs are connected, supported and resourced to thrive.

You have led with innovation. Now, we call on you to lead with coordination.

7.1.4CALLING GOVERNMENT AND POLICY LEADERS

You have laid the groundwork for universal early learning through an enabling policy framework that supports mixed-modality delivery. You have reformed registration requirements and demonstrated commitment to bringing unregistered sites into the formal system through the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive.

Access has expanded through increased eligibility for the ECD subsidy, and government remains the single largest investor in early learning via the conditional grant. You have embraced innovation, backing funding mechanisms like the ECCE Outcomes Fund and partnering with initiatives such as the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention (PYEI) and the Jobs Fund to create livelihoods within the sector.

Your investment in district and provincial capability through the Bana Pele PMU reflects a recognition that strong, local systems are key to sustained delivery.

Now, we call on you to:

• Lead the orchestration of the early learning funding stack (outlined in Chapter 4), bring together public, private and philanthropic funders to grow total investment and align funding flows for greater impact towards 2030 and beyond.
• Champion an open, interoperable delivery system where key government platforms, including eCares, the Thrive by Five Index, ELOM and emerging data streams, can be accessed by all actors, public and non-state, so they are equipped with the insights needed to support every child.
• Strengthen leadership across all levels of government, national, provincial and district, ensuring officials have the capability to help ELPs register, expand and thrive, especially in underserved communities.
• Convene inclusive, action-oriented forums with non-state partners that promote alignment, learning and shared accountability. Focus governance efforts on scaling quality access, not just provision, by 2030.
• Collaborate with municipalities to remove regulatory barriers and enable more ELPs to open and grow, especially in high-need communities that remain excluded.
• Increase investment in job creation within early learning. To meet universal access goals, we must incentivise and support a new generation of ELP providers, empowered to build resilient, community-based micro-enterprises.

You have shown bold leadership in policy and investment. Now is the time to lead a fully coordinated, system-wide effort through the orchestration teams outlined in this Blueprint, grounded in partnership, powered by data and focused on equity, to ensure that no child is left behind.

7.1.5CALLING FUNDERS AND RESOURCE PARTNERS

You have invested in NGOs that deliver, innovate and build capacity across the early learning ecosystem. Through your support, a rich tapestry of tools, insights and delivery models has taken root, strengthening the foundation for scale. You’ve demonstrated a willingness to fund differently, backing innovative mechanisms like the ECCE Outcomes Fund and testing new approaches that are adaptive, accountable and impact-driven.

Now, we call on you to:

• Treat early learning as a strategic investment in the country’s future, an investment in human capital, economic growth and social stability, not simply as an act of charity.
• Incentivise collaboration over competition. As funders, you shape the culture for the sector. Support cooperation, shared learning and systems that strengthen early learning and serve diverse communities.
• Align more closely with public investment. Public-private synergy is critical to achieve universal quality access. Co-investing with the government can unlock scale while ensuring equity.
• Focus on the problem, not a fixed solution. Be flexible. Support approaches that evolve with evidence, data and changing societal needs. Let child outcomes, not brand loyalty or legacy, guide your investment decisions.
• Use data to drive learning, not control. Measures such as the ELOM should be tools for learning and improvement, not gatekeepers. Funders play a key role in helping the sector use data to drive impact without creating fear or rigidity.
• Back innovations that improve child outcomes. Your resources can accelerate promising models, close access and quality gaps and drive progress, especially in underserved communities. Let the speed of innovation set the pace for scaling impact.

With your continued partnership, early learning is well poised to become one of South Africa’s most powerful levers for lasting social and economic transformation.

7.1.6CALLING COMMUNITY AND LOCAL LEADERS

You are the pulse of your neighbourhoods. Through places of worship, stokvels, sports clubs, cultural groups and civic associations, you shape the daily life of your communities. You create spaces of belonging, safety and connection. Your influence, resources and relationships already support the wellbeing of children, and you are uniquely positioned to do even more.

Now, we call on you to:

• Promote enrolment and regular attendance in ELPs. Ensure that every young child in your community has access to early learning during these vital years of development.
• Support and uplift local ELPs. Offer access to safe spaces for children, help raise awareness and celebrate programmes that are making a difference. If more provision is needed, help make it possible.
• Encourage stronger ties between families and ELPs. Help build trust, improve communication and make early learning a visible and valued part of everyday community life.
• Promote collective action. Collaborate with ELP providers, families and local authorities to align efforts around the common goal of helping every child thrive.
• Create inclusive community spaces. Develop or activate local play areas and gathering spaces where children, elders and youth can connect, learn and grow together.

You don’t have to do everything, but your leadership can make a powerful difference. As a community leader, you can be a catalyst for local change. Early learning is not just the responsibility of families or ELP providers, it’s a shared mission. And your role is essential.

7.1.7CALLING CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS

You have long been the steady hand of innovation, advocacy and service delivery in early learning, often stepping in where formal systems have yet to reach. Now, your role is evolving from working independently to enabling deeper collaboration and system-wide transformation.

With strong community roots and the agility to act quickly, you are essential to building and sustaining this movement. As connected, trusted and knowledgeable changemakers, you serve as a critical bridge between policy and practice, between institutional structures and everyday realities. By anchoring your work in collaboration, shared purpose and collective action, you help energise an ecosystem that delivers for every child.

Now, we call on you to:

• Align your work with this Blueprint. Let it guide your programme design, partnerships and advocacy toward the shared goal of universal quality access.
• Strengthen ELPs in your communities. Build local networks for peer learning, support and collaboration, especially for ELPs in under-resourced areas.
• Encourage enrolment and attendance. Use your platforms to advocate for early learning access, inclusion and consistency for all children.

Your voice carries weight, your reach spans communities and your leadership is vital to weaving together a cohesive, inclusive early learning system that leaves no opportunity unexplored and no child without support.

7.1.8CALLING DIVERSE COMMUNITY TALENT

You are the wise elders and entrepreneurial youth who help shape how childhood is seen, experienced and celebrated. Through art, music, design, technology, storytelling and community projects, your creativity sparks imagination, shifts mindsets and brings joy to young children and their families.

Now, your talent is needed more than ever, to help reimagine early childhood not just as a life stage, but as a space of possibility, dignity and shared responsibility.

We call on you to:

• Elevate the place of children in society. Use your creativity and influence to help communities see early learning as a joyful, essential part of life.
• Create cultural artefacts such as music, stories, games, visual design and digital tools, that enrich early learning experiences and celebrate every child’s uniqueness.
• Collaborate with ELPs, families and local leaders to bring your work into homes, centres and public spaces, so children grow up surrounded by inspiration.

You don’t need to be an early learning expert to make a meaningful impact. Every creative contribution helps build a more joyful, inclusive world for our youngest citizens.

7.1.9CALLING LOCAL HEALTH FACILITIES

You are often the first point of contact for ensuring the health and wellbeing of young children and their families. Every immunisation, wellness check and clinic visit is an opportunity to strengthen the vital connection between health and early learning. These two domains are inseparable, progress in one directly supports outcomes in the other.

Your relationships with families are built on trust earned through consistent care. You see children at their most vulnerable moments and guide parents through critical early health decisions. When you connect families to early learning opportunities, you extend your impact beyond physical health to cognitive, social and emotional development.

Now, we call on you to:

• Champion early detection and prevention. Regular screening and prompt nutritional support for at-risk children are critical for eliminating stunting and ensuring healthy development.
• Build stronger partnerships with local ELPs. By collaborating with ELP providers in your catchment area, you can extend vital health services, such as immunisations, deworming, vitamin supplements and developmental screenings, to more children, more effectively.
• Support the wellbeing of caregivers. Maternal and caregiver mental health is essential to child development. Your guidance, empathy and referrals can make a lasting difference for entire families.

When health and early learning systems work together, every child benefits. By deepening collaboration with ELPs, community health workers and social services, we can ensure more children grow up healthy, nurtured and ready to thrive.

7.2SHAPING OUR COLLECTIVE FUTURE

The road ahead will not be easy. Transforming South Africa’s early learning ecosystem will take patience, persistence and above all, partnership. Yet, as this Blueprint shows, the building blocks for change are already in place: people like you, proven programmes, tools that connect us and a shared commitment to every child’s right to thrive.

Policies and systems alone will not deliver our bold and urgent 2030 vision. Exponential change that sustains at scale happens when people engage and act together. Whether you are an ELP provider shaping learning every day, a parent raising your voice, a partner bridging gaps, a government leader driving systemic reform or a funder resourcing this work, your actions matter. This system grows stronger because of you.

The five stages outlined in Chapter 4 (Prime, Engage, Support, Sustain, Integrate) provide the roadmap. The 23 priority actions offer the stepping stones. The orchestration teams create the coordination. But it is your commitment, your collaboration and your courage that will bring this Blueprint to life.

Now is the time to reflect on your role, clarify where you can act, connect with others in your community and the ecosystem, develop shared capabilities and capacity and step into this collective journey with courage and ambition. This is your invitation to lead, to collaborate and to energise the early learning movement. Thousands of small, purposeful actions, taken together, can create a ripple effect greater than anything one actor could achieve alone.

Together, we can build a future where every child matters, not just in our words, but in our daily actions, in every neighbourhood, every centre, every clinic, every home and every heart.