Reflections from South Africa
May 16, 2023
In March, I was lucky enough to spend a day at a Capita-led workshop on the topic of “What can cities do to center the unique needs of young children in their climate change policies and strategies?”
I was outside Cape Town, South Africa, at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. As I drove out, Table Mountain loomed majestically in the distance. (Did you know that by dint of its unique topography, the mountain accumulates its own cloud cover colloquially called–naturally–tablecloth?) Two dozen of us filled the room to ask a question very few other people around the world are asking. The next day, we were treated to a salon lunch presentation by Tim Gill, author of the invaluable Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities.
We recently published a short paper with a summary of the workshop as well as recommendations that emerged. I also walked away from that workshop with a few more qualitative lessons that I wanted to share:
First, making space for conversations about young children and climate change matters. Workshop attendees included members of Cape Town’s government, researchers, and not-for-profit leaders working on early childhood issues in the city and with Cape Town’s large informally housed (sometimes called slum) population. While the focus was on South Africa, we were joined by a representative from the African Union, scholars from the UK, and an advisor to policymakers in Tirana, Albania.
For almost everyone involved, this was the first dedicated time they had ever spent considering the crossroads of young children and climate change. It proved a spark. The energy was incredibly high as we delved into both the threats and opportunities of foregrounding young children. Equally high was the desire to carry the conversation forward into action. “If the conversation ends in this room,” one participant said, “it will be a tragedy.”
Second, it is vital that these conversations are inclusive. Some of the comments that continue to stick with me came from a leader with Slum Dwellers International, describing both the frightening conditions in Cape Town townships (which flood with distressing regularity as climate change worsens extreme precipitation) and the hyperlocal efforts to carve out safe play spaces for the children living there.
In short, many frontline communities are already innovating and adapting around childhood in the era of climate change. They have little other choice. Seeing these efforts for the assets they are is vital. One of the tasks of think tanks and philanthropic funds is to spotlight what’s already working on the ground, a task that tends to run smack into institutional bias and historical gatekeeping against capacity building in these communities.
Third, we need to establish new crosscutting lines of communication when it comes to children and climate change. The silo effect is such that several of the Cape Town government officials and not-for-profit leaders in attendance were meeting for the first time. Much of the conversation revolved around how children, parents, and communities could thread up their climate-related needs to those in power, and how those in power must have streamlined ways to get frontline feedback on their plans. Breaking down those silos is a prerequisite for effective solutions.
I left South Africa with a sense of conviction. There is no longer a question in my mind about whether the emerging field of policy and practice around young children and climate change is important and worthy of attention and dollars. It is. The question now is how do we start building out that field so that decisions about climate change or early childhood are no longer made in isolation.
What I’m Reading
I was fascinated to explore a new interactive report from the Low Income Investment Fund, Flood Risks in New York City’s Child Care System: Using Spatial Analysis to Identify Water Vulnerabilities in Family Child Care Homes. The report drives home a concrete way in which climate change threatens early care and education: in this case, sea level rise and increasing flooding from extreme precipitation events are poised to cause huge damage to New York City’s family child care providers. It’s a sophisticated analysis that I’ve never seen applied to child care before, and I hope it is only the start.
Speaking of interactive reports, I also recently read this one from Child Care Aware of America and KABOOM, Mapping Playground Access in Philadelphia. They show with granularity how far child care programs are from playgrounds and how many children lack easy and safe access to nearby play spaces. Sadly and unsurprisingly, there are massive discrepancies across lines of race and income. While the authors don’t draw it out explicitly, I also think there is a climate change angle here: as heat waves lengthen and worsen, kids’ access to shady green space (space that often coincides with playgrounds) is all the more vital.
Finally, be sure to check out this blog post by Capita’s new Senior Fellow, Ankita Chachra: “Connecting cities, young children and climate action.” I’m incredibly excited to have Ankita (and her fellow Fellow, Adrián Cerezo) on board.
What I'm Writing/Saying
In case you missed it, I’ve had a few pieces out lately on the issue of private equity and child care. We released a policy brief, “Toddlers and Investors Aren’t Playmates: The Threat of Private Equity in Child Care,” in early March, and I had an op-ed in the Hill highlighting the top takeaways. Early Learning Nation also covered the brief, and I had the chance to speak with Scripps News as part of a story they ran about the topic.
I’d love to hear what you think about any of this! Please feel free to email me at elliot@capita.org with thoughts, recommendations, or reactions!