We know that the early years of life are critical. During this stage, the foundations for health, learning, and well-being are laid. We also know that poverty and inequality can profoundly shape these experiences. What is difficult to explain is why, even with this evidence, we continue to treat investment in the early years as a priority that can wait.
When discussing resources for young children, the conversation should not, first and foremost, be about cost-effectiveness. Their rights do not depend on how much they may contribute to society in the future. Health, nutrition, education, protection, and care are essential conditions for them to grow and develop to their full potential. Ensuring these rights requires public policies capable of turning recognized rights into real opportunities for every girl and every boy.
The reality in our region shows how far we still have to go to achieve this. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 43.7% of children aged 0 to 8 were living in poverty in 2022—nearly 15 percentage points higher than the general population. Behind this figure lies an inequality that begins far too early and particularly affects those who live in rural areas, belong to indigenous peoples or Afro-descendant communities, live with a disability, or are in a situation of internal displacement.
Given this situation, talking about investment cannot be reduced to simply asking for more money. We must also ask ourselves how much is being invested, what the resources are used for, how they are distributed, and what results they produce. Because a budget is not just a sum of numbers: it is a concrete expression of a society’s priorities. What we decide to fund—and how we do so—reveals who we place at the center of our decisions and what kind of future we are willing to build.
Therefore, if we accept that all girls and boys have the same rights, we must ask ourselves why the conditions into which they are born and in which they grow up continue to have such a profound impact on their ability to exercise those rights. What does it say about our priorities that millions of girls and boys begin their lives in poverty, and that we still have to insist that their rights require funding?
The answer cannot simply be to recognize the importance of the early years. We need that conviction to translate into well-funded, sustainable, and results-oriented decisions. With four years remaining until the 2030 Agenda deadline, strengthening funding for this stage is also essential to making progress on the goals related to early childhood care, development, education, health, nutrition, and protection.
That is precisely why the talks to be held in Mexico in November are important. From November 10 to 12, the 1st Latin American Summit on Early Childhood Investmentwill take place, bringing together governments, multilateral organizations, development banks, civil society, academia, and the private sector to promote sufficient, sustainable, and equitable investment in the early years of life. The meeting is expected to result in a Regional Declaration on Early Childhood Financing and national investment commitments that will contribute to the 2027 Global Summit.
The Summit can serve as a starting point for moving from statements to decisions. But the challenge goes far beyond a single meeting: it is about deciding, as a society, where early childhood fits among our priorities. Because guaranteeing the rights of children cannot depend on whether resources are available after everything else has been taken care of. If we want to build more just societies, the time to prioritize their rights is not tomorrow. It is from the very beginning of their lives.