Countdown to 2030: Country profiles on early childhood development

October 2025

The Countdown to 2030 country profiles on early childhood development (ECD) are an important step in establishing a global monitoring and accountability system for ECD. The initiative is affiliated with the Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. These profiles are intended to prompt further advocacy and action to advance ECD and to refine measurement and the collection of comparable country data in a number of areas critical to healthy development in the early years.

These profiles are produced by UNICEF for 198 countries and updated every two years, in collaboration with the Nurturing Care for ECD Countdown to 2030 Technical Working Group, affiliated with Countdown 2030 – Maternal, Newborn & Child Health. Refer to the Technical Appendix in the full report for more detailed information on the indicators, including the rationale for including the indicator, the definition of the indicator and the data source.

For the first time as part of the 2025 updates, African regional profiles have also been published.

New: Download individual country profiles in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian.