ABSTRACT
This chapter provides another lens for considering child development in humanitarian contexts. It reviews the literature around child and human development, bringing these two areas together for the first time to provide a stronger theoretical underpinning for Early Childhood Development in emergencies. These two theoretical areas of work have traditionally been separate and not considered as overlapping. The human development camp has focused on broader issues of human development in developing countries while those working on child development/learning have focused on children. Further, the exploration of these theories in a humanitarian context, which focuses on the broader socio-political aspects of a country, is also new. While practically in the implementation of early learning and development programmes in humanitarian contexts may sometimes have these theoretical underpinnings, there is not a clear recognition and understanding of them and how they together can strengthen programmes. Through the exploration and analysis of the various theories within the child and human development paradigms, I bring together two key theories: Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural theory and the Human Capability Approach. I argue that both of these theories together provide the best lens for understanding the situation of South Sudanese refugees in Uganda and early learning and development programming in emergencies.
