Every child counts: Measuring early childhood development in fragile contexts

In 2023, approximately 473 million children—more than one in every six worldwide—lived in areas affected by  fragility, conflict and violence (FCV). These children face immense challenges, including displacement, malnutrition, loss of loved ones, and disrupted schooling.

While the immediate dangers of conflict are evident, its long-term effects on young children’s development—shaping their cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being—are less visible. Early childhood is a critical period that lays the foundation for future learning, health, and resilience. Positive experiences during this time strengthen development, while adversity can lead to lasting setbacks, making it crucial to support children growing up in fragile settings.

Measuring early childhood development outcomes

Recognizing these challenges, the World Bank recently examined how early childhood development (ECD) outcomes are monitored in fragile, conflict-affected settings. Accurate, timely measurement is essential to ensure that children in fragile settings receive the care and opportunities they need to thrive. Without reliable data, it is difficult to determine whether a child requires support for trauma-related emotional difficulties, malnutrition, or other developmental concerns.

However, measuring ECD in conflict zones is fraught with difficulty. Imagine trying to assess young children’s cognitive or emotional health in an area facing active violence, limited electricity, inaccessible roads, and a shortage of trained health workers. Tools typically used in stable settings are rarely transferable into conflict zones. They often fail to consider linguistic diversity, cultural appropriateness, feasibility, or the impacts of severe trauma children may have experienced.

Factors to consider in FCV settings

The World Bank’s recent review identified four critical factors practitioners must consider when selecting tools for assessing ECD in fragile and conflict settings.

1. Clarify the purpose of data collection. Are we aiming to evaluate if an educational program helps young children recover from trauma? Or do we need a broader picture, such as tracking child development trends across an entire displaced community? Clear objectives lead to better measurement choices, ultimately delivering more useful insights for decision-making.
2. Consider the specific context and experiences of the children being assessed. Growing up amid conflict and displacement means that many children have witnessed or experienced traumatic events. Measurement tools must reflect these realities, incorporating emotional and social dimensions rather than focusing solely on academic or physical skills.
3. Take a holistic approach to evaluating multiple developmental domains. In conflict-affected settings, resilience, coping strategies, and the ability to form secure attachments are just as crucial as cognitive or physical development. Effective tools in these contexts must therefore measure well-being, executive functioning skills like attention and adaptability, and how children cope with toxic stress.
4. Address feasibility of measurement efforts. Can data collection realistically be conducted amid ongoing insecurity, limited infrastructure, and scarce resources? Ideally, assessments in these contexts should be brief, low-cost, flexible, and capable of remote administration if needed. Practitioners must adapt to difficult and rapidly changing conditions while still ensuring data accuracy.

Practical strategies for overcoming constraints

World Bank teams working in conflict-affected contexts emphasize practical strategies for overcoming common obstacles.. For instance, one team shared how collaborating closely with local partners helped them build community trust, improve data quality, and strengthen relationships to facilitate smoother data collection processes.

Practitioners stressed the need for adaptability. In FCV settings, conditions change rapidly and unpredictably. Data collection teams must build flexibility into their plans, anticipating delays and adjusting as circumstances evolve. Such agility is essential to collect accurate data and ensure the safety of both enumerators and participating families.

In FCV settings, measuring ECD effectively also depends on trust. Enumerators and community leaders play a crucial role in fostering confidence among families, ensuring they feel safe sharing information about their children. Without trust, caregivers may hesitate to participate, leading to incomplete or unreliable ECD data. Strong partnerships with local organizations help tailor assessments to cultural and linguistic contexts, making them more relevant and widely accepted. Training enumerators in trauma-informed approaches further ensures that interactions are both sensitive and respectful.

Opportunities

Despite these considerable challenges, opportunities remain. Promising approaches, such as remote phone data collection that relies on caregiver-led assessments, can safely reach children even when direct access is limited by insecurity. Furthermore, tools that integrate emotional, cognitive, and physical health indicators provide a more complete picture of child well-being.

Monitoring ECD outcomes in FCV contexts is critically important. Accurate measurement brings visibility to children’s needs and vulnerabilities, prompting necessary action. It helps governments, aid agencies, and communities craft interventions that respond directly to real, identified challenges, rather than operating blindly.

Monitoring ECD should be a priority. In fragile contexts, where children face immediate threats such as malnutrition, lack of clean water, and inadequate health care, prioritizing the measurement of ECD may seem secondary. However, measurement is a necessary tool for ensuring that interventions in health, social protection, and education are effective and responsive to children’s needs.

Through more precise and culturally sensitive assessments, we gain the insights needed to support vulnerable children’s development more effectively. We empower communities to advocate for programs and resources that provide their children with a fairer start, despite adversity.

Source: blogs.worldbank.org