The organization was founded as a result of a conference sponsored by UNESCO in Prague, where representatives from 17 nations convened to discuss a topic that most postwar policymakers had not yet addressed: what happens to children before they enter school. A group of educators determined that, as a matter of international principle, the early years of a child’s life should be protected as the world rebuilt itself following devastating violence. It’s a founding tale that now seems almost charming, but the intuition behind it seems more and more sensible.

OMEP World has a formal seat at several key tables because of its special consultative status with the UN through ECOSOC. It has co-developed policy guidelines on working conditions for early childhood personnel with the International Labour Organization, advises UNESCO on early childhood care and education, and takes part in UN migration committees. The final collaboration, which considers the dignity of educators as well as children, is the kind of detail that indicates the organization is aware of the ecosystem in which it operates.

Observing OMEP’s operations around the world gives me the impression that it fills a void that most organizations covertly leave. Budgets for education are typically allocated by governments to older children, quantifiable test scores, and secondary and tertiary outcomes that yield tangible political benefits. Seldom does pre-primary education, the chaotic, difficult-to-quantify world of children under eight, create the same sense of urgency. Less than six out of ten early childhood teachers in low-income countries have any formal training, and enrollment in at least one year of organized pre-primary education fell from 75 percent in 2020 to 72 percent in 2023, according to data cited by OMEP. These figures don’t point to a system gaining traction.

Nearly 400 people attended the 76th World Assembly in Bangkok in 2024 with the theme “Right from the Start for ECCE: Step Beyond All Together.” The conversations covered everything from the obvious to the truly unsettling, such as the candid admission that only about 35 of the nearly 400 conference presentations directly addressed human rights frameworks. Despite the general understanding that young children in vulnerable communities are among the groups most exposed to the effects of climate change, none of them addressed the issue. It’s difficult to ignore that gap.

The UN Decade for Early Childhood Care and Education proposal, which would formalize international attention and, ideally, funding commitments, has been the focus of OMEP World’s recent advocacy. International decades can be both symbolic gestures and catalysts, so it’s still unclear if that push will actually take off. However, the demand itself reveals something significant: the organization isn’t satisfied with working quietly on the periphery, organizing peace education seminars in Ghana or folding paper cranes with schoolchildren in Nagasaki, without also exerting pressure on the larger structures that decide whether any of that work survives budget cycles and shifting political winds.

OMEP World appears to understand—possibly better than most—that a child’s ability to learn, develop trust, and engage in civil society is all being shaped during those formative years, in settings that seldom make headlines. Goodwill alone is insufficient for the work being done in those rooms. It merits funding, policy, and ongoing consideration. For more than 70 years, OMEP World has made that claim. It doesn’t appear to have been completed yet.