How sharing Early Childhood Development (ECD) data with communities in Kiribati has furthered government engagement in ECD

Sharing research findings with the communities involved can often slip down the list of priorities for researchers in a time constrained world. Surely resources should be primarily directed at disseminating data to key government officials or potential donors? Involving communities in research from start to finish can, at times, be viewed as something that would happen in an ideal world. But, as we found in Kiribati, community engagement can be key to leveraging government interest and creating real impact.

Operating in Kiribati, it was always a given that we would disseminate the results of our research amongst the communities. In the Pacific, community is everything and reciprocity is a big part of the way things work. If you’re going to collect information from people, you have to give something back. You can’t even begin to collect data without permission from the maneaba on each island – the equivalent of local councils. The heads of the maneaba are represented in parliament which meant for us that decision makers were invested in our work from the start and there was keen interest in our findings.

Kiribati is a small island nation in the central Pacific, spanning 21 inhabited islands and covering an ocean area of 3.5 million square kilometres. It is home to around 120,000 people, with 40% of the population under the age of 18. The Kiribati Voluntary National Review and Kiribati Development Plan Mid-Term Review, both conducted in 2018, found that child and neonatal mortality were the highest in the Pacific. The Kiribati Social Development Indicator Survey in 2018-2019 found a relatively high prevalence of communicable diseases, including diarrhoeal illnesses and pneumonia in children under five, coupled with low rates of national child vaccination.

Climate change is both a current and looming threat in Kiribati. None of the islands of Kiribati are more than four metres above sea level at their highest point, while the highest point on densely populated South Tarawa, home to around half the population, stands just three metres above sea level. Two previously inhabited islands are already underwater. Furthermore, droughts are already impacting the quality and availability of drinking water and islanders are finding it increasingly difficult to grow fruit and vegetables. For the children of this island nation, a future as a climate refugee is a very real possibility. But whether they remain in Kiribati or are forced to move elsewhere, it is essential that future generations are equipped with the skills and resilience to face the challenges to come.

In this context, the government of Kiribati is dedicated to nurturing an educated, skilled and employable population, in alignment with the Kiribati Vision for 20 years (KV20). It has committed to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In 2024, our team completed a full census of 3 to 5-year-olds using the KiEHCI (the locally adapted early Human Capability Index). We also built on the KiEHCI by validating the WHO’s Global Scales for Early Development (GSED) for use in Kiribati. The GSED is an open-access tool for monitoring and evaluating early child development from birth to three years. The GSED shares overlapping themes with the KiEHCI, creating a seamless, validated, and continuous monitoring framework to track children’s development from birth through to the age of six. The logistical challenges of reaching the widely dispersed island communities of Kiribati meant that the validation process and subsequent data collection was focussed only on the villages of South Tarawa, however, over time, the intention is for use of the GSED to span across the outer islands of Kiribati.

The work to validate the GSED was conducted in close collaboration with the Government of Kiribati, with the intention of empowering government staff and local enumerators to independently and effectively use the GSED. Building community capacity was a key goal, with the aim of ensuring impactful and sustainable use of the tool.

In line with our aim of reciprocity, we presented the findings back to communities, raising awareness of early childhood development amongst the population. The government was already invested in the survey findings, but there is no doubt that community interest increases this engagement. Over the last decade, the insights provided by our research into the multifaceted challenges in early childhood development in Kiribati has manifested as the impetus for the inaugural Kiribati Early Childhood Development Policy.

The recent National Research Act in Kiribati has created the National Research Coordination Committee (NRCC), chaired by the Office of the President. The NRCC provides cross-ministry oversight of all research activities in the country. This now allows for dissemination both from top-down government and policy levels, to ground up community and maneaba levels to achieve greater impact. As a consequence of presenting to the NRCC, we have been asked to support the presentation of our results in the form of cabinet papers – with support to three cabinet papers to date. Recently we also presented to a special meeting of MPs arranged by the Ministry of Education in conjunction with UNICEF to provide an overview of the status of early childhood development in Kiribati. This was followed up with providing a set of Top 10 priorities to support ECD to the Parliament.

The findings of both the KiEHCI and the GSED indicated that many children are not reaching their developmental milestones. Key areas of concern were early numeracy and literacy skills and task perseverance, along with the widespread prevalence of stunting. The results of the KiEHCI are continuing to be shared with communities, with teams presenting the data visually using large thematic maps of each island and village. When communities hear that some children are behind where they should be, their natural response is to ask what is going to be done to change things. This clear interest in early childhood development continues to push the issue up the government’s agenda. Communities have shared insights into factors which may have driven the results. These include the use of kava, a psychoactive drink which has only been introduced into Kiribati in the last twenty years, and the popularity of bingo – both of which can keep parents away from the home. Increasingly, there has also been concern over the use of smartphones amongst young children.

Most field researchers may be familiar with speaking to communities who complain that people just come and ask them questions and they never hear anything more. This situation can feel inevitable, especially when there is never time or funding allocated specifically for community dissemination of the results. But, by not involving communities in post- research discussions, researchers are missing out on harnessing key advocates for their findings. While the cultural practices of Kiribati society means that community involvement in research is expected, it also provides a model for how to work with communities so that findings can have maximum impact.

Banner image: UNDP Climate on Flickr