Starting strong: Early childhood development in India, a guide for funders and charities

There are 158 million children under the age of six in India. Across a range of indicators related to nutrition, health and care, the outlook is poor.

The primary goal of our report, Starting strong, is to help donors who care about Indian children to understand what the funding priorities are, and to identify organisations they might want to support. The report is the result of a year spent in India researching social needs and analysing dozens of charities working in Rajasthan, Delhi and across India.

It includes a number of key messages for donors, including:

  • Donors should look young: the first year’s of a child’s life are foundational and donors can make a real impact here stopping problems before they develop.
  • Donors should generously support NGOs to build their own capacity. NGOs working in early childhood development need to be better resourced with the right skills and long-term funding if they are really to achieve transformational change.
  • While India has the world’s largest Early Childhood Development programme, there are still many areas where donors can make a difference, for example, supporting initiaitive in urban areas, which are commonly overlooked.

NPC has also produced a more general report on giving in India, providing a practical and useful toolkit for funders looking to give in the country.

Click to read Giving in India

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