The world secretariat of an organization that most people outside of early childhood education are unaware of is located somewhere in Buenos Aires at an address on Sanchez de Bustamante. Three years after the United Nations was established, in 1948, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP, was established. It has fought for children’s rights to care and education in over 70 countries for more than 70 years. UNESCO, UNICEF, and ECOSOC have given it advisory status. In all honesty, it is one of the most subtly powerful organizations in international education.
Additionally, it is currently concentrating more on the question of what algorithmically driven platforms are doing to very young children’s minds, which would have been unthinkable when its founders came together in the wake of World War Two.
The issue is not hypothetical. Excessive screen time has been linked by researchers monitoring early childhood digital exposure to language delays, short attention spans, sleep disturbances, and poorer learning outcomes. These findings are not outliers. Peer-reviewed literature, UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Reports, and the clinical observations of early childhood practitioners in preschools and nurseries from São Paulo to Stockholm all mention them. In collaboration with UNESCO and national chapters worldwide, OMEP is attempting to transfer that corpus of evidence from scholarly publications into policy rooms where actual decisions are made.
OMEP-France and UNESCO co-hosted an online discussion in January 2026 with a particular focus on the implications of digital technology and artificial intelligence for early childhood education. In order to develop what the event described as specific guidelines for an ethical, balanced, and inclusive use of these technologies in preschool settings, the Chief Policy Analyst for the GEM Report collaborated with representatives from both organizations. That might sound modest. Rules. webinars. Policy talks. However, the targets are not intentional, while the direction is. With increasing directness, OMEP is questioning whether the platforms, apps, and immersive gaming environments that big tech companies sell to kids are made with their development in mind or with something else entirely.
Based on years of documentation by researchers and child protection advocates, the response is rather unsettling. Children’s data and attention are now valuable resources for businesses. A twenty-five-year-old and a three-year-old are not distinguished by platforms built around engagement metrics, which maximize the amount of time a user spends on a screen. Developmental stages have no bearing on the algorithms that optimize for clicks and watch time. The term “digital sanctuaries” has started to be used in OMEP’s advocacy work; these are places, both legal and physical, where young children are not viewed as customers to be kept. That framing is intentional. It makes a significant change by using the term “protection” instead of “restriction.”
OMEP’s stance is intriguing because it goes beyond being merely anti-technology. The organization’s published work on digital literacy clearly recognizes that, when used properly, well-integrated technology can support equity in early childhood education by bridging gaps for children with disabilities, supplying high-quality materials in settings with limited resources, and enhancing early literacy development. The claim that screens are intrinsically dangerous is not made. The reason for this is that the current commercial model, which focuses on gathering data and attention from the youngest users, is incompatible with the real needs of early childhood education, which include human interaction, physical play, leisurely exploration, and adults who are focused on the child rather than a gadget.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that this discussion is taking place in 2026, following years in which the tech sector essentially set its own rules regarding children. In certain nations, the regulatory landscape is starting to catch up. Examples include school phone bans, age verification requirements, and limitations on targeted advertising to minors. Although OMEP’s contribution to that change isn’t as obvious as it might be in a protest or a high-profile lawsuit, it is nonetheless persistent and influential in the settings where education policy is developed. It is genuinely still unclear if that weight will be enough to influence how the world’s biggest tech companies create products for kids.
