Financing the future: scaling quality and equitable early childhood education

Diane joined the IIEP Paris office in 2015 after spending 7 years in the IIEP Africa office in Dakar. Over those years, Diane has been supporting Member States, particularly in the areas of education sector analysis and strategic education plan preparation, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation, including in crisis-affected countries.

Passionate about ECE, she has engaged in various works related to ECE planning, including conducting key studies on the cost-effectiveness of ECE models and on ECE financing, and designing a MOOC on “How to Mainstream ECE into Education Sector Planning” with UNESCO, GPE, and UNICEF. She has taught in different courses offered by the Institute, including in tailor-made trainings.

Before joining IIEP, Diane was Chief of Social Policy and M&E at UNICEF Madagascar. She also worked at the World Bank in Washington, DC on various issues related to children in Africa.

Özsel Beleli is an expert on early childhood development and basic education policy with over 15 years of experience in evidence creation, programme management, advocacy, and policy making across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. She is a scholar of public administration and social policy and currently serves as Head of Learning and Engagement at the Education Outcomes Fund.

Adriana is a global education practitioner with over thirteen years of experience spanning donors, international organizations, implementing partners, and academic institutions. She currently serves as Head of Program Development at the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF). In this role, she leads the design and development of large-scale programs in early childhood care and education (ECCE), basic education, and skills for employment, ensuring that funding translates into measurable improvements in learning and workforce outcomes.

Gwang-Chol Chang has been the Chief of the Education Policy Section at UNESCO Headquarters since June 2019. Before that, he worked as Senior Program Specialist, Chief of Education Section at the UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar since February 2016 and coordinated all education programs of the Office. Before joining the Dakar Office, he was Senior Program Specialist at UNESCO. 

From 1996 to 2010, he served at various units of UNESCO’s Education Sector in Paris, supporting diverse programs, including policy analysis, planning, and management. Before 1996, he worked at the Ministry of Education of his country. He holds a Doctorate in Education (Ed.D) from Kim Hyong Jik University of Education, DPR Korea

Rokhaya is a Programme Specialist and the Global Lead for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. With over 17 years of experience working with governments, United Nations agencies, and international organizations, she specializes in early childhood, literacy, and non-formal education. She has held various roles, including teacher, education researcher, policy-maker, and project manager. 

Rokhaya coordinated the African Working Group on ECCE for seven years and contributed to the Global Early Childhood Advisory Group and the Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN). She has led numerous projects related to curriculum development, education reform, and school evaluation, and has published several works on early childhood development and education in Africa. She is the organizer of the World Conference on ECCE held in Tashkent in November 2022, which resulted in the adoption of the Tashkent Declaration by 155 UNESCO Member States.

Melissa Kelly is an Education Specialist at the World Bank, where she co-leads the Early Childhood Policy Academy. She brings over twenty years of experience in the design and delivery of education, early childhood, caregiver engagement, and childcare programming across diverse contexts in over twenty countries. She holds several leadership roles in global and regional networks and working groups. 

Melissa’s previous roles include Program Director at ChildFund International and Program Manager of Save the Children’s ECD program in Mozambique. She holds a master’s degree in international educational development from Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Janeli is responsible for leading the system reforms in the Early Childhood Development sector that will result in achieving universal access to quality early learning programmes by 2030. She is also the co-orchestrator of the Bana Pele Shared Blueprint, an ecosystem initiative to support the expansion of access to quality early learning in South Africa.

Michelle Neuman is a senior fellow at Results for Development (R4D) and a research affiliate at Yale Inclusion Economics, where she works with governments and partners to improve young children’s development and well-being in low-resource contexts. Her recent research has focused on the early childhood workforce and financing of early childhood care and education. 

From 2023 to 2025, Michelle was a Federation of American Scientists Impact Fellow embedded with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she supported the design and implementation of play-based early childhood programs, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. Michelle taught and advised graduate students in international educational development at the University of Pennsylvania for more than a decade.