Nigeria’s orondaam otto delivers keynote address at UNESCO’s global early childhood summit

Orondaam Otto is a renowned social entrepreneur, educator, public speaker and founder of Slum2School Africa. Otto gave a moving Keynote Address at the UNESCO General Assembly at the 2022 World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Tashkent, Uzbekistan – At a time when early childhood education is gaining unprecedented global […]

Orondaam Otto is a renowned social entrepreneur, educator, public speaker and founder of Slum2School Africa. Otto gave a moving Keynote Address at the UNESCO General Assembly at the 2022 World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Tashkent, Uzbekistan – At a time when early childhood education is gaining unprecedented global attention, Nigerian social entrepreneur and education advocate, Orondaam Otto, delivered a keynote address at the UNESCO World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education (WCECCE), held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

The summit, organized by UNESCO, brought together more than 1,500 delegates from over 150 countries, including heads of state, education ministers, academics, and development leaders. The gathering served as a critical platform to advance global commitments toward inclusive, equitable, and quality early childhood care and education (ECCE), a cornerstone of Sustainable Development Goal 4.2.
In his keynote address at the opening plenary, Orondaam Otto spoke on the demographic shifts shaping Africa’s future and the need for intentional investment in young children. “It isn’t enough to encourage the brain drain by exporting Africa’s best talents to grow other economies,” he said. “We must equally be intentional about ensuring that the growing population in Africa, which will double in three decades, becomes an asset not just for the global economy, but for Africa itself.”
His remarks came at a moment of urgency for many countries across the Global South, where millions of children remain excluded from early education systems. According to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, over 20% of African children aged 6–11 is out of school, one-third of adolescents aged 12–14 is excluded from education, and nearly 60% of youth aged 15–17 is not enrolled in any learning institution.
Drawing from over a decade of work through Slum2School Africa, an organization he founded to support underserved children across Nigeria, Otto emphasized that structural reform is not optional but essential. He pointed to fragmented governance as a core issue, arguing that early childhood education is often diluted across multiple ministries and agencies without a unified framework. Otto called for the establishment of unified Ministries for Children and Early Childhood Development.