BETTER STARTS. GREATER REACH.

Introducing the Early Years Impact Center: Your New Partner in Early Years Advisory, Innovation and Design

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Early Years Impact Center (EYIC), an independent advisory center dedicated to helping governments and global partners design, finance, and scale early childhood policies and services that last.

WHO WE ARE

Built for impact. Driven by evidence. Rooted in country experience.

EYIC was founded because the world urgently needs a dedicated, independent, future-oriented home to support countries in building strong early years systems. We bring together decades of hands-on experience across governments, UN agencies, and global partners with a commitment to rigorous evidence and practical solutions.

Based in Barcelona and working globally, EYIC offers technical advisory, evidence translation, innovation, capacity building, and sector advancement services. We work with you, not for you, building capability that stays in country.

Independent. Evidence-led. System-focused.

Ivelina Borisova

CO-FOUNDER

Iva is an ECD strategist with over 20 years of experience translating cutting-edge research and evidence into scalable policies. Before setting up the Center, she served as UNICEF’s Regional Advisor for Early Childhood Development in the ECAR Region and previously as UNICEF’s global lead for early childhood education and care. She holds a Doctorate in Human Development and Education from Harvard University.

Jessica Brown

CO-FOUNDER

Jess specializes in designing national ECD system reforms and working with diverse partners to practically apply these. With over 13 years in early childhood and education, she has worked with governments, UN agencies, EU DGs and Delegations, the private sector, and NGOs. She currently leads ECD programmes as Programme Director for INGO Development Workshop.

THE CASE FOR EARLY YEARS

A strong start requires strong systems.

Children’s earliest years shape lifelong learning, health, and wellbeing. Yet many countries lack the integrated systems, financing, and delivery models needed. EYIC helps partners move from ambition to implementation.

90%

brain development before age 5

$13

returned per $1 invested in ECD

250M

children under 5 not reaching potential

40+

country systems our team has shaped

WHAT WE DO

Five interconnected functions.

01 Technical Advisory: Hands-on support to design, reform, and strengthen early childhood systems.

02 Evidence Translation: Turning global research into practical guidance for policy.

03 Innovation & Foresight: Anticipating trends and designing forward-looking approaches.

04 Capacity Building: Strengthening institutions and workforces to deliver at scale.

05 Sector Advancement: Shaping the field through partnerships and convening.

EYIC AT THE GLOBAL FORUM · KIGALI, RWANDA · MAY 2026

From Promising Pilots to Lasting Systems: Reflections from the Global ECD Financing Forum

Earlier this month, the EYIC team joined government leaders, investors, and development partners at the Global Technical Financing Forum: Act for Early Years in Kigali, Rwanda. Co-hosted by the Government of Rwanda, UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, and AfECN, the forum brought together practitioners and policymakers to confront one of the sector’s most persistent challenges: how to close the financing gap for early childhood services at scale.

The conversations were rich, the energy was high, and the commitment was real. But our core reflection coming out of Kigali is this:

We now have many promising models: pilots, funding mechanisms, and facilities that are showing real results. The challenge is no longer whether solutions exist, but whether we can build them systematically.

Too often, innovative financing for early childhood operates in parallel to government systems rather than within them. What we heard clearly in Kigali, and what our own experience confirms, is that the next frontier is about embedding these approaches into public systems from the start, with a plan for scale built in, not bolted on.

Critically, these financing mechanisms need to be built into systems, not layered on top. That means cultivating chains of technical leads and champions not only within the ministries directly responsible for early childhood services, but equally within finance and planning ministries. Without that institutional anchoring, even the most innovative funding models risk remaining isolated experiments.

Four shifts stood out to us:

01 Align with finance ministries and treasuries from the start. Early childhood investment cases need to speak the language of public expenditure management, not just social sector advocacy. ECD financing must be positioned as a lever within public responsibilities for provision and oversight, not as a parallel track. Philanthropic and commercial funding can then further support, inform and leverage public funding, but the public component remains critical — and not just as an afterthought.

02 Use public funds in newer, more creative ways. There are real opportunities to use public funds to better leverage non-public funds and financing mechanisms, ensure scale and inclusion, and to rethink funding for results. For example, through de-risking private lending for ECD providers with guarantees that unlock loans for infrastructure improvements or study bursaries that build a qualified workforce. However, small-scale pilots only go so far; bold approaches are needed to implement these at scale and with long-term partnerships.

03 Make quality and access go together. Blended and innovative financing can simultaneously improve the quality of existing services (through infrastructure and workforce investment) and expand access into underserved areas and markets where provision is thin or non-existent.

04 Build institutional chains of champions. Sustainable financing for early childhood requires dedicated technical leads within line ministries responsible for ECD, but also within finance and planning ministries. These cross-government champions are essential to ensure that early years investment is embedded in national budgeting processes, medium-term expenditure frameworks, and public investment planning.

The Kigali forum was a milestone, and we’re proud to have been part of it. As the sector looks ahead to the first-ever International Finance Summit for Early Childhood in 2027, EYIC will continue supporting governments and partners to turn financing ambition into system-level reality.

MAY 6-8, 2026 · KIGALI, RWANDA

Global Technical Financing Forum: Act for Early Years

Co-hosted by the Government of Rwanda, UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, and AfECN, confronting the financing gap for early childhood services worldwide.

VISIT THE FORUM WEBSITE →

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

A dream a long time in the making.

$Iva and Jess$

Establishing and running a specialist center has been a long-held dream of ours: a home for our shared passion for early childhood development, where we can be flexible, agile, and focused on the work that excites us most. The ECD sector is a special one, made up of like-minded people driven to make the world better for its youngest citizens.

We have been so lucky to work alongside wonderful, collaborative, and dynamic colleagues, peers, and partners in the field, and we look forward to continuing that spirit through a partnership model. Our aim is simple: to design and deliver ECD advisory support with you and for you.

To our early years friends, thank you, from the heart, for the encouragement, guidance, and support that brought us to this point. We can’t wait for this new phase of working and dreaming together.

Iva & Jess

START A CONVERSATION