Today's Edition
MAYS IBRAHIM (ABU DHABI)
Abu Dhabi is setting a positive example for other regions by prioritising data-driven solutions in early childhood development, said Friederike Schüür, Chief of Data Strategy and Data Governance at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in an interview with Aletihad on Tuesday.
The Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority (ECA) announced on Tuesday that it will develop the “Thriving Child Index,” a first-of-its-kind comprehensive framework aimed at measuring child wellbeing across multiple sectors.
The Thriving Child Index seeks to offer a holistic measurement system, ensuring that child wellbeing is not evaluated through a single metric but rather incorporates various aspects of a child’s development and overall quality of life, according to the Abu Dhabi ECA.
Schüür noted that data-driven research is crucial in early childhood development, helping shape more effective policies and interventions.
“Investing in early childhood development is something that can deliver long-term benefits for the child, its environment, and for society as a whole. One of the best ways of understanding how to best invest in early childhood is to use data.”
Schüür explained that this approach helps effectively guide investments in early childhood development, supporting evidence-based policymaking, and allowing for continuous monitoring and improvement of implemented policies and strategies over time.
The Abu Dhabi ECA’s Thriving Child Index stands out for its focus on comprehensive data systems and responsible governance, according to Schüür.
“One of the things that's so exciting about the Thriving Child Index is that it really focuses on the whole child and what contributes to the well-being of the whole child. It will facilitate conversations about how we can actually measure that concept and what kind of data we can use to ultimately compute and re-compute that index over time.”
She add that the type of data systems leveraged to develop this index will enable the generation of near real-time data that allow for accurate monitoring of implemented interventions.
UNICEF has been working with the Abu Dhabi government on responsible data for children since 2022, according to Schüür.
She noted that Abu Dhabi has shown a “particular excellence” when it comes to investing in proper data governance with a holistic approach to ensure that the systems powering the index are designed with ethical considerations that protect the children behind the data.
“I'm very excited about this Thriving Child Index because it builds on a lot of existing work and sets the tone on the kind of indices that we'll be using going forward in order to make sure that we think holistically about how we can advance, across the many different sectors, the wellbeing of the child, supporting the caregivers, supporting the environment and putting in place the right policies,” added Schüür.
