The Government of Kiribati prioritises early childhood initiatives as part of its strategic development agenda, recognising the foundational importance of this critical period for lifelong health, education, and well-being. These efforts align with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.2, which calls for universal access to quality early childhood development and education by 2030.
Building on the 2017 national developmental census, this study employs the Kiribati Early Human Capability Index (KiEHCI) to reassess developmental outcomes for children aged three to five years. This longitudinal approach supports the evaluation of progress, policy impact, and resource allocation in the early childhood development (ECD) sector.
The KiEHCI is a culturally adapted tool designed to measure population-level ECD outcomes across nine domains, including physical health, communication, socioemotional development, and cognitive skills. Developed collaboratively with local stakeholders, it ensures relevance to Kiribati’s unique sociocultural context. This 2024 study retains the same developmental questions as those used in 2017 to enable direct comparisons over time, employing enhanced fieldwork strategies to maximise data quality and coverage. This ensures robust, actionable insights into the state of ECD in Kiribati. The 2024 KiEHCI census recorded 6,960 children aged 3‒5 years, with an estimated participation rate of at least 95% of the eligible population.
Key findings:
- Overall, the developmental scores in 2024 were lower than those in 2017, particularly in foundational literacy and numeracy.
- The results for the physical health, verbal communication, and social and emotional skills domains remained relatively stable but were lower than 2017 for younger children.
- The largest declines were observed in children aged three and four, which were the cohorts most affected by early-life disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Breastfeeding duration dropped from an average of six months in 2017 to 3.5 months in 2024, with 90% of children breastfed at some point (down from 94%).
- Community-level performance varied significantly, with South and North Tarawa showing mixed results in overall child development scores, reflecting diverse conditions across regions.