[Facilitator’s Note: Welcome to the 5th Annual ECOSOC AMR E-Discussion on Education: Closing the Gap. Please find below all contributions received in the second phase focusing on Access to Education. The moderator’s message and background information can be found at the 2011 AMR E-discussion website. If you encounter any difficulties please contact the facilitator Ms. Kayla Keenan via (
[email protected]). Thank you] Phase Two Questions: 1. Early childhood care and education (ECE) provides enormous benefits and can mitigate the effects of deprivation and contribute to improved learning. From a local, national and global perspective what policy options have been effective in making ECE a reality for children and reaching the most disadvantaged or excluded children? 2. The benefits of educating women and girls has been widely documented. What experiences can you share on the bottlenecks, policy initiatives, and implementation efforts that have secured increased and sustained participation for girls in school? Summary of Contributions: Dr. Rania Antonopoulos, Levy Economics Institute Addressing how to use Early Childhood Development to target disadvantaged or excluded children, Dr. Antonopoulos shared two country based examples (South Africa and Mexico). The uniqueness in each of these instances was the framework of the programme to address the needs of infants and young children, are community based and the care giving is provided from within the community. This construction allowed these initiatives to contribute to multiple policy objectives including: poverty reduction, creation of basic infrastructure, promotion of gender equality and improved health and nutrition outcomes. When presenting the case to non-education community Dr.