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Aspirations for Young Children Globally

Yisak Tafere, Lead Qualitative Researcher at Young Lives Ethiopia, pointed out children living in poverty have high aspirations, but what they lack is the opportunity to achieve them in many cases. Alex Coutinho, Executive Director of the Infectious Diseases Institute of Makerere University in Uganda, reflected on his own childhood in the African context and what he deems the lottery of life whereby the unpredictable allocation of children to geography, gender, poverty, stability, and many more external contexts will influence each of their lives today and into the future. In doing so, Coutinho stated aspirations are an essential attribute if children are going to be given a future view of what they can become—to be able to say that we, too, can go to the moon.

Aderemi Kuku, president of the African Academy of Sciences, grounded his aspirations in the future science and policies emanating from the African continent, which places an imperative on investing in children today. Kuku aspires for all African governments to have viable and comprehensive early childhood development policies and for all African countries to have science centers where people can have hands on experience with science. Kuku went on to urge that children have the chance to play with the sciences through the creation of child science centers in partnership with the members of the African Science Academy Development Initiative (see Box 8-1).

The aspiration of the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally is to assist decision makers around the world to use the best science and evidence for investing to optimize the well-being of children and

their lifelong potential. Mellsop urged that those in attendance at the workshop who represent the cross-section of science, policy, and practice owe it to future generations to collectively update the thinking, priorities, and investments to meet the needs of disadvantaged children. Coutinho situated the discussion on the future in the African context by stating if

Africa is to take its place in the world in the future, in both normal times and during emergencies, investments in the continent’s children must go beyond basic survival to ensure children can thrive and transform the future.

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