REMARKS: Minister Kitlang Kabua RMI Ministry of Education, Sports & Training PACIFIC REGIONAL COUNCIL FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT (PRC4ECD) MEETING (VIRTUAL) 27 November 2020, 9:00 a.m. – 12 noon (Fiji time)

1. Hon. Johathan Curr ( High Commissioner), Hon. Ministers, Mr.

Sheldon Yett (UNICEF Pacific Representative & ECD Pacific Secretariat), Dr.

Micheal Samson (Director of Research Economic Policy, Research Institute),

distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Let me begin by extending warm

greetings of Iakwe from President and the people of the Republic of

the .

2. I also take this opportunity to thank the organizing committee for allowing RMI to

speak at this Pacific Regional Council for Early Childhood Development

(PR4ECD) meeting, to share recent achievements and challenges on ECD in the

RMI- Kommol tata!

3. While the Marshall Islands is making steady progress to rolling out our Early

Childhood Development plan, we recognize that much more needs to be done. The

Multi-Sectoral Approach to ECD has both highs and lows. The positive side is that

we all need to work together and consider the holistic needs of children and their

families. The challenge is that the coordination necessary for success is slow

moving. Inonoki bwe en Didbōlbōl, our nation's ECD slogan, loosely defined in

English as ‘nurturing our children to flourish’.

4. Translating this slogan into action, we have demonstrated our commitment by

setting our initial goals around policy reforms, bottom up approach to the

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development of our curriculum framework, legislative reviews, harmonization of

resources and strategies, costing analysis, classroom and health facilities upgrade

and renovation, and the design work for a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) pilot

program for vulnerable families with young children.

5. All of these are part of our National 2020-30 Strategic Plan, which we have aligned

with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, regional commitments, such as

Pasifika Call to Action; and international commitments, such as the Convention on

the Rights of the Child. Next year our goal is to develop a National ECD Strategy.

6. When RMI went into lockdown early this year due to the COVID19 pandemic, our

ECD steering committee, continued to assess the situation of the child in RMI to

design a plan that would support our legal and institutional structures towards

creating an enabling environment to meet the needs of ALL our children. Questions

of sustainable financing for ECD services are even more pressing as we face the

consequences of COVID 19 and the impacts to the global economy.

7. The people of the Marshall Islands have enduring challenges to navigate. In these

uncertain times, we face the global test of the COVID19 pandemic and the negative

impacts of climate change. Vulnerability to climate change is socially differentiated;

the most vulnerable children can suffer irreversible impacts linked to climate-

shocks that affect lifetime earnings potential and lead to the intergenerational

transmission of poverty.

8. RMI geography is a large-ocean state, with our two chains of atolls and islands

spread out over an exclusive economic zone of 2 million square kilometers in the

central Pacific. While two-thirds of our population lives on the capitol Atoll

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and Kwajalein Atoll, around 20,000 continue to reside in remote atolls and islands.

This makes delivering basic services, including for children, a major challenge.

9. There is a strong need to broadly strengthen social services and social protection

systems in the Marshall Islands to ensure all children are nurtured and protected.

The ECD services and programs that we do have, are either fragmented or not

equally available and distributed. We also acknowledge that families in hard to

reach places, affected by domestic violence, natural disasters, climate shocks or

living with disability are often left behind from social safety nets and other critical

services. We must pay close attention to their needs.

10. By doing so, we need to strengthen our network of social workers, either through

our government ministries or through better partnerships with civil society

organizations. Strengthening partnerships with civil society is itself a priority.

11. There are other areas that warrant further planning and strategic discussion: data

management systems to better drive planning and decisions, addressing the

drivers of stunting in the Marshall Islands and the wider Pacific region, and

strengthening civil registration.

12. I wish to emphasize on one area of significance, and that is traditional culture.

While we prepare children to be globally competent in the future, it is equally

important that they remain culturally rooted with the values and traditions that are

the foundation of resilience, hope, and stability. Our culture is uniquely us, it is our

identity. We are responsible for passing it on to our children as our ancestors did

before us. This is a sacred process which we must all manage with the utmost

respect.

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13. In closing, I would like to recognize former President Hilda Heine, whose vision

and action has led to the foundation for ECD development in the Marshall Islands

and acknowledge organizations such as PIFs, UNICEF, UNFPA, and World Bank

for being part of this journey- this is only the beginning.

Kommol Tata im Jeramon!

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