EPIC

About

Despite significant reductions in child mortality in recent decades, 250 million children (43%) in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk of not reaching their development potential. The World Health Organization’s Nurturing Care Framework, based on state-of-the-art evidence on children’s healthy development, takes an explicitly intersectoral approach, and programs that have measurably improved children’s early childhood development (ECD) outcomes have relied on strong partnership from non-health sectors and agencies. Yet much remains to be learned about the structural, political, and systemic factors that drive successful intersectoral action. Furthermore, more research is needed on participatory aspects of intersectoral action for health, including notably the meaningful engagement of children as stakeholders.

Engaging Policymakers in Intersectoral Collaboration for children in early childhood (EPIC) is a prospective policy analysis assessing a participatory, data-driven intervention to improve intersectoral ECD policy for children aged 0-8 years in 5 localities each in Argentina and Ghana. The five-stage intervention is designed to redress common pitfalls of intersectoral action for health by using inclusive issue framing; deliberate co-production with public and non-public-sector actors, including children; and collaborative resource generation.

Research objectives

To deepen understandings about what works for intersectoral policymaking, EPIC has four main research objectives:

1. Explore how typologies of intersectoral action evolve in the context of differing political and fiscal power-sharing arrangements.
2. Investigate whether intermediate process indicators of collaboration and partnership are aligned with intersectoral policy coherence, integration, and effects on early childhood development indicators.
3. Analyse how the engagement of non-governmental actors including civil society, communities and children can be maximised using inclusive issue framing and participatory data systems.
4. Promote institutionalised learning and increase stakeholders’ knowledge of and self- efficacy to engage in intersectoral policy processes.

Training

In addition to producing strong local policies for ECD and generating knowledge about intersectoral policymaking, EPIC has a strong training component, with doctoral students based at the University of Ghana and FLACSO-Argentina and additional post-doctoral training. EPIC researchers will also co-design a bespoke training programme for policymakers to increase their knowledge and skills for conducting intersectoral policymaking.

Oversight

The EPIC project receives guidance from an Oversight Committee led by Dr Verónica Schiariti, a developmental paediatrician and physician-scientist at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, with membership including top experts on ECD, policy and governance, child participation and related topics from Africa, Latin America, and beyond.

CAP-2030

This research builds on formative work by Children in All Policies 2030 (CAP-2030), an initiative based at UCL’s IGH that was established to implement the recommendations of the 2020 WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission report. CAP-2030 conducts research and advocacy to centre children’s health and well-being in all policies and to promote participatory, intersectoral policymaking for and with children.