Since the 2000s, international development and global health have increasingly moved toward evidence-based behavior change interventions as a means to promote health and development. A good example of this fix-the-poor approach is the field of Early Childhood Development interventions in the Global South (Global ECD). Global ECD presents itself as a strategy to boost economic growth and sustainable development by enhancing the brain capacities of individuals, or, as UNICEF calls it, “building brains, building futures.” Its main method is to modify parenting practices in ways that are believed to optimize young children’s cognitive and socio-emotional development. This, in turn, is expected to lead to better school performance in middle childhood and greater productivity in adulthood. However, the scientific evidence underlying these programs is biased: it largely draws on research conducted in Western middle-class contexts and overlooks long-standing ethnographic research documenting the diversity of parenting practices and caregiving arrangements. In this lecture, I introduce the field of Global ECD, examine some of its core assumptions in light of ethnographic evidence, and argue that anthropology and related disciplines need to engage more actively and directly with behavior change interventions such as Global ECD.

Gabriel Scheidecker is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK), University of Zurich. He leads the project "Saving Brains? Applying Ethnography to Early Childhood Interventions in the Global South" (2023-2028), funded by an SNSF Starting Grant. His research focuses on childhood across various settings, parenting support, and early childhood development interventions.