Congratulations to all those involved in launching the Nutrition & Early Years Advisory Group (NEYAG), which was inaugurated on December 4, 2025 at a meeting titled: “Shaping the Future of Africa: Nutrition and Early Childhood Development as Game Changers.”

Hosted in Dakar by the World Bank and partners, the meeting brought together leaders across sectors to advance strategies that strengthen human capital through improved nutrition and early childhood development. 

At the event today, our Director, Florencia Lopez Boo, shared insights from Global TIES for Children’s research portfolio on how to integrate health, nutrition, and child development policies, highlighting evidence on what policy environment is needed to enable such integration and what governance structures and regulations can inform impactful, scalable policies across the continent.

The award recognizes his pioneering research on the ways public policies and programs, particularly in early childhood and immigration, shape human development.

From November 3-6, 2025, Hirokazu Yoshikawa and Sharon Kim represented Global TIES for Children at the final Engage Community of Practice convening, organized by EDC and hosted at the LEGO Foundation headquarters in Billund, Denmark.

Over three days, partners from across the Engage portfolio shared evidence and lessons on strengthening student engagement in early childhood and primary education across diverse contexts.

The sessions focused on:
Insights from implementing and adapting the Engage tools
Trends emerging across countries and developmental levels
How data can drive program improvement and system-level change

This convening wasn’t a “show-and-tell.” It was hands-on, reflective, and honest about what it takes to embed child-centered, playful learning approaches into teaching and learning systems—and sustain them.

We’re proud to celebrate our colleague Carolina Rivas, Senior Research Associate at Global TIES for Children (NYU), on the release of her new book, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank.

Based on 22,000+ in-person surveys across 11 countries, interviews with public officials, and detailed reviews of government digital platforms, the book examines whether digitalization of public services is increasing access — or widening existing gaps.

Key takeaway:
Digital systems can improve efficiency, but not everyone gets the benefits. Without intentional policy and design choices, digitalization risks deepening regional inequities.

During the launch event in Washington, D.C., Carolina and co-author Julieth Santamaria presented the findings, followed by a panel discussion on what governments can do to ensure digital transformation leaves no one behind.

Florencia Lopez Boo presented at the 2025 Inter-American Development Bank Regional Policy Dialogue: "Childhood, Innovation, Impact: Transforming Early Childhood Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)" in Mexico City.

More than 100 participants, including authorities from 17 LAC countries, donors, civil society, and academics.
Wonderful speakers and panelists such as Susan Walker, Mariano Bosch Mossi, Marta Rubio-Codina, Carolina Freire, Romina Tome, Alexandre Bagolle, Claudia Vazquez, Jorge Gaete, Filipa de Castro, Eunice Deras, Andrés Moya, among many others.
Tremendous master lecture by James Cairns.
And a first-class closure of the "Child Development Innovation Fund."

Not only was it motivating to discuss the challenges of Latin America in the coming years, it was also nice to catch up with the Haiti and Argentina teams whom we are working on border agendas, and to see so many dear friends and colleagues. Congratulations to the Pablo Ibarraran team and the Inter-American Development Bank for this unique space for reflection.

We’re excited to share that we kicked off training for the pilot phase of our iRRRd study on October 5, together with our partners at icddr,b and University of California, Davis. Over the next three months, we will test new measures for the next wave of data collection with Rohingya refugee families living in the southeast of Bangladesh.

This wave — following children in our study cohort as they reach three years of age — has been made possible by a $𝟯 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 The LEGO Foundation.

“This pilot is a critical step to make sure our tools capture the unique realities of Rohingya and host community families,” said Fahmida Tofail, co-Principal Investigator and Scientist at icddr,b. “We are eager to generate insights that can inform both science and policy.”

“Having the chance to follow children into toddlerhood is an extraordinary opportunity,” added Alice Wuermli, Principal Investigator for iRRRd and Director of Research & Innovation at NYU Global TIES for Children. “It allows us to investigate the mechanisms — from the molecular to the social — of how pre- and postnatal environments affect early development.”

𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗘𝗚𝗢 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗶𝗰𝗱𝗱𝗿,𝗯, 𝗨𝗖 𝗗𝗮𝘃𝗶𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲.

Prof. Yoshikawa participated in the launch of a new global research partnership with Epoka University School of Architecture and Planning to study the Tirana School Street model​. 

The Global TIES team was proud to co-host on NYU’s campus, The Agency Summit with The Agency Fund and NYU Office of the Provost. Organized alongside #UNGA week here in New York City, The Agency Summit on Friday, September 26th, was designed to “foster collaboration between researchers, practitioners, and funders to explore how personal and collective agency can be harnessed to promote sustainable development outcome.”
The full-day agenda was opened by heavy-hitters Hazel Markus, Karla Hoff, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, and included many engaging conversations.

In a day full of standout moments, we want to highlight the “Practice” panel with Tarun Cherukuri, Amanda Beatty, Carolina Trivelli Avila, and Hirokazu Yoshikawa (moderated by our very own Florencia Lopez Boo): a grounded conversation on turning evidence into decisions that communities can actually use.

We loved Kate Schwartz’s reflections on implementation, measuring what matters, building feedback loops, and staying close to context.

Our very own Hirokazu Yoshikawa presented alongside the The LEGO Foundation Engage research team from South Africa, Colombia, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Denmark to a packed room.

The symposium showcased findings from a global research partnership using the Engage observation tool, now in its 6th year of development. This innovative toolkit measures how adults support children’s engagement in learning – at home and in classrooms – across four dimensions: Exploration, Agency, Social & personal connection, Emotional climate.

The results are powerful: engagement not only boosts academic skills, but also supports social and emotional learning. Insights like these are shaping how we measure adult–child interactions and design programs that better support children’s learning across the early years and primary school.

Florencia Lopez Boo had the honor of delivering a keynote on “Investing Better in Child Development Policies, ”sharing reflections on how we can improve the design and delivery of impactful programs at scale.

In July 2025, LEARN scholars from Ghana came together in Accra for their first annual methods workshop—five days of hands-on training focused on measure development and psychometric analysis.  By investing in these skills, LEARN scholars are building the capacity to advance research on learning variability.

Florencia Lopez Boo had the honor of delivering a keynote on “Investing Better in Child Development Policies,”sharing reflections on how we can improve the design and delivery of impactful programs at scale.

We were also proud to present our poster on hybrid modalities of parenting programs from Jamaica, highlighting how flexible, evidence-informed models can better support families. Special thanks to Susan Walker and Fahmida Tofail for the insightful discussions.

Millions of refugees around the world suffer in silence, not because they lack a voice, but because their pain is misunderstood or mismeasured.

On World Refugee Day, we uplift the voices and lived realities of displaced communities and call for deeper, more culturally responsive care.

At TIES, we work hard to partner with local communities and integrate methods that capture participant voices directly. For example, the paper we reshare today highlights some of the qualitative work we have done as part of the iRRRd study, led by Rohingya researchers and collaborators, to explore cultural concepts of distress (CCDs) among Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar. It identifies five locally meaningful expressions of emotional suffering, like tenshon and bishi sinta, that often go unrecognized by standard mental health tools.

As we act in solidarity with refugees, we must design support systems that reflect how communities themselves understand and communicate distress.

A meaningful gathering in Germany, where LEARN and LEVANTE scholars came together to exchange ideas, build connections, and advance research on learning variability—how children grow and learn across time, groups, and contexts.

With support from the Jacobs Foundation, LEARN program—led by NYU, Universidad de los Andes, and the University of Cape Coast—empowers early-career scholars to shape research that reflects their local realities and drives more equitable, context-informed approaches to supporting children’s learning.

Moments like these remind us that global progress begins with meaningful relationships!

Professor Lawrence Aber, former Co-Director of NYU Global TIES for Children, received an award for Distinguished Contributions to Understanding International, Cultural, and Contextual Diversity in Child Development at the 2025 SRCD Biennial Meeting.

Attendees from NYU, multilateral development banks, and early childhood NGOs and foundations discussed parental support initiatives.

Housed at NYU Steinhardt, Global TIES for Children hosted a launch event for the latest edition of the Van Leer Foundation’s flagship Early Childhood Matters journal last month at the Kimmel Center.

Around 60 people attended the launch event, including representatives from around NYU, such as faculty and staff from Steinhardt and NYU Langone. Also in attendance were practitioners from the early childhood community in New York City, including the International Rescue Committee, Sesame Workshop, Save the Children, and Innovations for Poverty Action.

What does it mean to truly support parents and caregivers in shaping the future of children’s development?

From policy and research to insightful conversations and a moving performance by Carnegie Hall’s Lullaby Project, our recent gathering at NYU brought together powerful voices to explore just that—through the lens of the latest issue of #EarlyChildhoodMatters2025, published by Van Leer Foundation.

When we support those who care for children, we invest in a stronger, more compassionate future.

Read Early Childhood Matters 2025: https://lnkd.in/gAiS87JQ

This event, organized in January 2025, showcased the six-year project’s accomplishments and learnings, including groundbreaking research led by NYU-TIES on media-supported early childhood development (ECD) program models and innovative approaches to integrate fathers in the nurturing care of young children as well as findings from the first-ever large, prenatal birth cohort study with a displaced population. The interactive sessions, featuring voices and stories from our work, highlighted the barriers we've overcome and the strides we're making towards placing children at the center of humanitarian responses.