The Government of Kiribati has made early childhood a national priority, recognising this critical period as the foundation for lifelong health, education and wellbeing. Strong early childhood initiatives are central to Kiribati’s development agenda and align with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.2, which commits to ensuring all children have universal access to quality early childhood development and education by 2030.
To support this vision, the project adapted and validated an international tool that can be used to monitor and evaluate early child development (ECD), the Global Scales for Early Development Short Form (GSED SF), intended for use with children aged 0–36 months in Kiribati. This is the first time the GSED has been applied in the Oceania Pacific region, marking a significant contribution to the global evidence base. Alongside this, to inform national policy and services, a household survey captured rich insights into the child-raising context, including socioeconomic conditions and parenting practices.
As a result, Kiribati now has a culturally relevant tool to monitor and evaluate ECD at both national and programmatic levels. The adaptation process required overcoming challenges such as limited translation capacity and linguistic differences between English and Te-Kiribati. These were successfully addressed through close collaboration with in-country experts, ensuring both scientific rigour and local relevance.
The study provides the first validation of the GSED SF in the Pacific, demonstrating high reliability