Since the launch of the Global Home Based Childcare Alliance in May 2026, the movement has been building momentum, bringing together organisations committed to putting home-based childcare firmly on the global agenda. As the Alliance grows, so does the need for leadership to help steward this collective effort.
On 1 September 2026, Leah Justina Anyanwu stepped into the role of Secretariat Lead, bringing with her more than a decade of experience spanning early childhood development, philanthropic portfolio management and multi stakeholder coalition building across East Africa and globally.
In many ways, Leah’s journey seems almost made for this moment. She began her career as a kindergarten teacher in New Orleans, an experience that gave her a first hand understanding of what young children need to thrive, and of the systems and support caregivers need to make that possible. Since then, she has worked across governments, civil society organisations and major philanthropic foundations, helping shape how institutions invest in young children and the people who care for them.
Most recently, Leah served as a Programs Specialist at the LEGO Foundation, where she managed a philanthropic portfolio of more than $75 million spanning early childhood development and education in emergencies across multiple geographies. Her experience also extends to coalition building. As a Steering Committee member of the Moving Minds Alliance, Leah provided strategic oversight of programming and helped identify additional organisational funders to strengthen the Alliance’s resource base.
Now, as she settles into her new role and prepares for #UNGA81, Leah is stepping into a new kind of challenge: helping turn a growing global movement into sustained collective action for the millions of children and caregivers who rely on home-based childcare. We caught up with her to hear her reflections on this new chapter, what drew her to the Alliance, and what she hopes to help achieve in the months ahead.
1. What excites you most about stepping into this new role?
I am most excited to get to know the founding Alliance members deeply and to begin broadening the membership in ways that reflect the full diversity of home-based childcare providers globally. What drives me is the urgency of the problem itself. In addition to the thousands of moms around the world who rely on home-based childcare providers, the need for safe and reliable childcare in refugee and displaced communities is also great and oftentimes overlooked. The reality is that mothers displaced by conflict and climate change face an impossible choice: earn an income or keep their child safe.
Without access to reliable care, many cannot begin to rebuild their lives and realize their dreams. Some are forced to leave young children with older siblings, which puts both children in a difficult position. Elevating home-based childcare is not just an early childhood issue. It is an economic justice issue, a gender equity issue, and a humanitarian one.
2. What connections have you found between your work in early childhood development and home-based childcare?
Early childhood development and home-based childcare are deeply interrelated and I think the field has not always been clear about that connection. For most of the world’s youngest children, a home-based setting is their very first learning environment. What happens there, from the quality of the relationships and the stimulation to the sense of safety and security, lays the foundation for early learning, secure attachment, and lifelong development. You cannot talk seriously about improving child outcomes without talking about the people and places providing that foundational care.
3. From your perspective, what are the key areas that policymakers, ECD actors and funders need to focus on to elevate home-based childcare to the global agenda it deserves?
The starting point is visibility. Most policymakers genuinely do not know how many children in their countries are in home-based childcare, who is providing that care, or what quality looks like in those settings. Until that data exists at scale, it is difficult to make the case for investment or regulation. Building that evidence base has to come first.
From there, the priority is professionalisation. Home-based childcare providers are doing some of the most important developmental work in a child’s life, often with no formal recognition, no training pathway, and no access to the kind of support that childcare centre staff take for granted. When we treat providers as professionals, give them credentials, ongoing development, and fair compensation, quality improves and the case for government and philanthropic investment becomes much easier to make.
Denmark offers a compelling reference point. When I had my daughter there, I encountered a system called Dagpleje, where registered childminders care for small groups of children inside their own homes, often within the same neighbourhoods those families live in. These settings are government-regulated and subsidised, which means quality is consistent regardless of whether a family chooses a public daycare or a home-based childcare provider. Mothers choose them not as a compromise, but as a genuine preference, often for the intimacy and convenience they offer. That kind of policy architecture, one that treats home-based childcare providers as equal partners in the care system rather than an informal fallback, is a model worth working towards.
4. As the Global HBCC Alliance Secretariat Lead, what is one key challenge you hope to address over the next three months as you lead the Secretariat?
I want to broaden the types of funding available to home-based childcare providers beyond traditional grantmaking. Many providers are entrepreneurs running viable small businesses, and the grant cycle does not always match the rhythm of how they operate. There is real potential to explore low-interest loans, government subsidies, and blended finance models that give providers the stability to sustain and grow their work. That shift in how we think about financing home-based care, from charity to investment, feels like one of the most important conversations I can launch in the next three months.
5. Is there anything else you would like to share with our audience as you begin this new chapter?
This role feels personal in the best possible way. As a new mother, I know how essential reliable, high-quality childcare is. My hope is that mothers everywhere, regardless of where they give birth or how much they earn, can pursue a livelihood without having to worry about whether their child is safe. No mother should have to choose between those two things. That is the world I am working towards and it’s an honor to be leading this work alongside the Alliance.
Across Leah’s reflections, her passion for home-based childcare shines through, grounded in both deep expertise and lived experience. As she steps into this new role, that combination of experience, systems thinking and personal commitment will be central to helping the Alliance turn growing recognition into collective action, stronger investment and lasting change.
We invite organisations working to strengthen childcare systems to partner with us and join the Global Home-Based Childcare Alliance as we work together to put home-based childcare firmly on the global agenda.
