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Minister Kabua's PRC4ECD Remarks

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Minister Kabua's PRC4ECD Remarks 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 (New Zealand 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 David Kabua and the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. 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 1 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 Majuro Atoll 2 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. 3 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! 4 .
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