WEBINAR: Enhancing Delivery of Quality Early Childhood Education and Development Spotlighting Learning Through Play and Playful Parenting
PANELISTS AND SPEAKERS
Dr Boniface Kakhobwe is an Early Childhood Development expert with over 20 years work experience at global, regional and country levels; and currently serves as ECD Specialist at UNICEF Headquarters in New York, providing leadership on nurturing care, ECD financing and partnerships. Previously, Dr. Kakhobwe managed child development programs in Eastern, Western and Southern Africa. Prior to joining UNICEF in 2012, he coordinated child development, humanitarian and livelihoods programs at Save the Children and the United Nations Development Programme. He is passionate about creating strong and sustainable global, national and family systems for improved child and human development outcomes.
Tolulope Ojo is a research officer at the Early Childhood Development Initiative (ECDI). She has expertise in research, data analysis, and gender. She is passionate about efforts to reduce inequality and improve children’s education and rights. She is currently a Ph. D Candidate in Gender and Development and holds a BSC in Demography and Social Statistics.
Joy Nafungo is a Senior Program Officer at International Development Research Centre in the Global Partnership for Education, Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) program,. Her work with KIX involves managing and providing technical oversight to projects while directly supporting the Africa 19 hub. She also oversees Early Childhood Development and Education within KIX.
Abdoulie FR Jadama holds the position of Lecturer within the School of Education at the University of The Gambia. He also serves as the Country Coordinator for the KIX_GPE/IDRC Research Project and as the Local Research Coordinator for the World Bank/Gambia MEL Capacity Development and Technical Advisory Services to the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in collaboration with Social Impact.
Silas Onyango is a postdoctoral research scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). He holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland, and a Master of Science degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Norway. He leads various projects in early childhood development (ECD), where his research work focuses on understanding how early life experiences affect children’s lifelong outcomes, and he is driven by the belief that protecting, promoting, and supporting ECD through evidence-based health and educational interventions is essential to enabling children to achieve positive long-term outcomes in health, education, and labor.
Silavwe Michael, works with the Ministry of Health Zambia as Chief IMCI Officer, Directorate of Public Health, under Child Health Unit. He is the focal point person for Early Child Development (ECD) in the Ministry of Health. Summary of Core responsibilities: Coordinates, manages, plans and undertakes the Integrated Management of Newborns and Childhood Illness (IMNCI) in order to mitigate impact of child morbidity and mortality. In addition, he coordinates ECD at National level as well as Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT). He also participates generally in other Child Survival interventions implemented by the Ministry of Health such as Community Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (C-IMCI), Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM), Essential Newborn Care (ENC) and Paediatrict HIV activities.