FUTURE INVESTMENT: Thrive by Five uses data to drive smarter investment in early childhood

Sonja Giese’s more-than-30-year career in child development has seen her take on a pioneering role in using data to transform early learning outcomes in South Africa. Through initiatives like the Thrive by Five Index, she has helped empower communities, educators and policymakers to drive meaningful social change.

From an early age, DataDrive2030 founder and executive director Sonja Giese knew that her future would involve working in the child development sector. Her awareness of both the vulnerability of children and the social injustices shaping South African society was the driving force behind a more-than-30-year career marked by milestones in research and problem solving.

One of these milestones was the release of a game-changing report on the early childhood development (ECD) sector, the Thrive by Five Index , in 2022. The index was initiated by Innovation Edge – an impact-first investor founded by Giese to target early childhood challenges – in collaboration with other organisations. It was the largest survey of preschool child outcomes ever attempted in South Africa.

Reflecting on the impact of the index, Giese said: “It’s been much more profound than I even anticipated, and I think it’s because it’s a true partnership. After the first launch of the index… one of the things I was anxious about was that the sector would feel criticised... but actually what they felt was heard and seen. They felt validated. They felt like their work was important.”

The national survey behind the index, conducted every three years, measures the proportion of children aged 50 to 59 months across all nine provinces who are developmentally on track for their age in key areas of development. The 2024 survey was led by the Department of Basic Education and coordinated by DataDrive2030.

The index has become an important reference point for people across the government, business and civil society tracking progress in ECD.

“We wanted the Thrive by Five Index to be the national narrative, and we’ve got a lot more work to do. But I really think... it’s given this common thing that we all can see and work toward... It’s not about any one particular organisation’s interventions. It’s about how collectively, as a country, we can shift the needle,” said Giese.

Conducting a survey on the scale of the Thrive by Five Index is no easy feat. Hundreds of field workers visited communities across the country, navigating local challenges and convincing parents and principals to provide them with their time.

“We interviewed parents, principals and practitioners. We assessed children, we did observations of their programmes...