Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa officially opened the 2025 Pacific Early Childhood Development (ECD) Forum in Apia, calling for stronger leadership, long-term investment, and deep cultural grounding in all ECD efforts across the region.
“We are not simply opening another meeting,” Fiame said in her address. “We are here to honour our greatest legacy: our children.”
Held in Samoa for the first time, the Forum brings together high-level delegations, ministers, institutions, and development partners, reflecting what Fiame described as the region’s growing prioritisation of ECD.
The theme for this year’s Forum is “Our Children, Our Heritage: Blue Pacific Resilience through ECD Leadership.”
Fiame said children must not be seen as passive recipients of services, but as “culture-bearers, climate actors, and the heartbeat of Pacific resilience.” She described the Forum as a turning point—a regional reaffirmation that the well-being, identity, and protection of the youngest citizens must be central to the Pacific’s development.
Fiame highlighted Samoa’s recent milestone—the launch of the Samoa National ECD Framework (2024–2034), a ten-year, whole-of-government commitment endorsed by Cabinet. The Framework integrates health, education, protection, nutrition, parenting, inclusion, and is anchored in culture, faith, and village governance.
Regionally, Fiame said Samoa continues to support the elevation of ECD in Pacific-wide policy, including the 2024 Triennial Pacific Women Ministers Communiqué, the Pacific Youth Ministers Meeting Outcome, and the CSW69 statement to the United Nations.
“These are not just technical milestones but cultural shifts,” she said. “ECD is foundational to gender equality, climate justice, and economic stability.”
A key feature of this year’s programme is the first-ever Pacific ECD Summit for Caregivers and Frontline Workers, co-hosted by Samoa and UNICEF Pacific. The session will centre the voices of those closest to young children—grandparents, fathers, teachers, health workers.
“Tomorrow, you will hear their collective voice,” said Fiame. “Listen not with policy ears, but with ancestral hearts.”
Fiame urged delegates to move from consensus to action and outlined three priorities: embedding language and cultural knowledge in all ECD settings, integrating climate awareness into curriculums and care approaches, and sustaining the PRC4ECD through long-term political and financial support.
“If we change the beginning of the story, we change the whole story,” she said in closing. “It is not only what we build for them, but what we build with them that will endure.”
The 2025 Pacific ECD Forum is now officially open.
