An online meeting was held on 3 December 2021 where the legal framework was discussed as to how early childhood care and education (ECCE) services provided by municipalities would be scaled up.

The officials from ILO, EBRD and UMT as well as representatives from municipalities participated in the meeting and discussed how municipalities were providing ECCE services, what challenges they were facing, and what must be done to scale up ECCE services.

High costs of ECCE delivery “a barrier to affordable services”

The participants in the meeting expressed that the main challenges faced by the municipalities in delivery of ECCE services included such costs as staffing, transport, administration, rent etc. which increased the cost of ECCE delivery, and consequently stood as a barrier to women’s participation in the labour force as parents could not afford such costs.

The participants proposed, as a solution, that such challenges could be overcome through inter-institutional cooperation between the private and public sectors and municipalities as recommended in the Report “Promoting Women's Employment Through Inter-Institutional Cooperation: Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Practices” published by the ILO Office for Turkey and EBRD.

A framework and future strategies will be formulated for municipal delivery of ECCE services building on the facts, recommendations and solutions voiced in the meeting.

Roadmap aims to standardize ECCE services

The ILO Office for Turkey, EBRD and UMT met online earlier on 15 November 2021 to start the joint process of drawing up a roadmap to scale up municipal delivery of ECCE services.

The efforts aim to produce a draft legislative piece that standardizes ECCE services and encourage municipalities to deliver such services, and to contribute to increasing women’s employment through scaling up ECCE services.

Efforts in line with the ILO-EBRD Report proposing three models of ECCE delivery

Under the “More and Better Jobs for Women Programme” implemented by the ILO Office for Turkey with funding from Sweden, the ILO Office for Turkey and EBRD released in June 2021 the report that proposed three models of ECCE practices.

The report proposed Organized Industry Zone (OIZ) Practice in cooperation with employers, Municipal Practice led by municipalities, and Labour Union Practice by unions organized at workplace.

The ILO Office for Turkey, EBRD and UMT signed a protocol in June 2021 to operationalize the Municipal Practice as proposed in the report to scale up affordable and quality ECCE services through municipalities.