ECCE provision is usually scattered across different actors (Marope and Kaga, ed., 2015). A number of ministries and departments at provincial, district and community level are generally involved in ECCE: basic education, higher education and training for early learning; employment, social affairs for care services, and child social protection; health, environment, quality of life for mother and child health, survival, nutrition, water and sanitation; women empowerment, children rights, justice for legal protection. Ministries and departments of plan, finance, local development, participate in the coordination of ECCE policies and strategies, and the budgetary allocation. Statistical offices are in charge of collecting data to monitor and evaluate policies’ implementation and impact. Furthermore, in most of countries, where governmental-led ECCE services are limited, chambers of commerce, which represent private owners, and corporations, are key implementing partners. NGOs, community based and religious organizations, professional associations, academia, and, ultimately, parents, are also fully involved in ECCE.
None of these different actors might accomplish the holistic development of the child, in all his/her areas of cognitive, socio-emotional, physical growth, by working in isolation. If actors work incoherently and without connecting each others, the ECCE provision will be dysfunctional, resulting on a fragmented experience for children and parents, far from being holistic, resilient and effective. As a result, the lack of a systemic perspective is the major constrain undermining efforts to boost access, quality and equity ECCE at global level. It is not the consequence of chronic budgetary deficit of most countries, which limits the national spending towards social welfare, but rather the cause. Countries with high national incomes are not necessarily those with largest and better ECCE provision. It is the awareness about the necessity of working as a system, rather than in isolation in order to effectively promote the holistic development of the child, which makes the real difference in ECCE. A system can be defined as a corpus of institutions, actors, rules, mechanism, processes, practices, working as one to achieve a common set of goals.