City Hall launches Integrated Municipal Policy for Early Childhood in Rio – Little Cariocas

The initiative integrates services, data, and actions from 18 municipal agencies to monitor children from gestation until age six, with special attention to families in vulnerable situations; the pilot project in Madureira already monitors 6.627 children and pregnant women - Photo: JP Engelbrecht/Rio City Hall

The Rio de Janeiro City Hall launched this Tuesday (September 15th), at IMPA Tech, in the Santo Cristo neighborhood, the Integrated Municipal Policy for Early Childhood in Rio – Pequenos Cariocas (Little Cariocas). The initiative created an integrated approach by the City Hall to monitor the development and guarantee the rights of children from gestation to six years of age, bringing together actions from various municipal bodies. In practice, the policy allows different areas of the municipal administration to act in a coordinated manner based on the needs of each child and family, with special attention to situations of greater vulnerability.

– It's a policy to reduce inequalities, in which the City Hall pays even closer attention to children. We will be able to follow their lives, the daily lives of these families, so that we can provide better conditions, especially to those who are in greater social vulnerability. It is a public policy that will certainly serve as a reference for other cities in Brazil – declared Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere, who signed, during the event, the decree creating the Integrated Municipal Policy for Early Childhood in Rio – Little Cariocas.

Coordinated by the Municipal Secretariat of the Civil House, the initiative's main instrument is the Pequenos Cariocas Program, which organizes the City Hall's actions into nine areas: priority for families in vulnerable situations; protection against violence and guarantee of rights; adequate food; inclusion; the right to the city; the right to play; children's participation; housing; and strengthening families and caregiving.

The Little Cariocas Program already monitors approximately 130 children, pregnant women, and postpartum women through a new monitoring methodology and an intersectoral monitoring panel. This number corresponds to 33% of children in early childhood in Rio de Janeiro. The program will also monitor approximately 26% of pregnant women served by the municipal public health network.

– The proposal is to integrate existing policies and services so that we can work together on the different dimensions of child development. The policy places the needs of each child at the center of public policies. To this end, the Civil House has established intersectoral governance, bringing together different secretariats around joint planning and shared responsibilities. This project makes me believe in better days for our children – said the Secretary of the Civil House, Leandro Matieli.

The monitoring panel was developed by IplanRio, an agency linked to the Civil House, responsible for integrating municipal databases and for the technological tool that allows monitoring the indicators and protocols defined by the program. The "Pequenos Cariocas" (Little Cariocas) Policy coordinates actions from various municipal secretariats and agencies: Health, Education, Social Assistance, People with Disabilities, Women and Care, Culture, Sports, Housing, Conservation, Community Action, Tourism, Environment and Climate, and Transportation, in addition to the Parks and Gardens Foundation, the Pereira Passos Municipal Institute of Urbanism (IPP), MultiRio, and IplanRio.

The Little Cariocas Program is already showing results in Madureira.

The new policy expands on an experience that has already been developed by the City Hall since April in the Madureira region. The pilot project, designed for the Priority Axis of the Little Cariocas Program, involves 14 neighborhoods and integrates data from the municipal departments of Health, Education, and Social Assistance to identify and monitor situations that may compromise development and access to rights in early childhood.

Using data, indicators, and technology, 6.627 children and pregnant women began to be monitored through 14 intersectoral protocols. In the first 30 days of testing, the monitoring identified situations that needed attention and contributed to the regularization of the situation of 619 pregnant women and children who presented irregular protocols (such as vaccination, civil identification, among others). The result represented an improvement of approximately 10% in the regularity of the monitored populations.

The protocols allow for monitoring different dimensions of the child's and pregnant woman's life. In Health, items such as vaccination, consultations, home visits, linkage to Primary Care, prenatal care, postpartum period, and rapid testing during pregnancy are observed. In Social Assistance and Education, monitoring includes civil documentation, updating of the Single Registry, access to adequate food, registration and enrollment in daycare or preschool, and school attendance.

Experience has shown that data integration and joint action across different areas of the City Hall can enhance the public sector's ability to identify vulnerabilities and provide faster, more coordinated responses.

In September, the Pequenos Cariocas – Eixo Prioridade Program won the CONIP Award for Excellence in Public Management 2026, in the Public Policy category, and was selected to be presented at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona in November. One of the program's axes is also a semi-finalist in the Human-CentriCity category of the Seoul Smart Life Week 2026, in Seoul, South Korea.

The Pequenos Cariocas – Eixo Direito à Cidade project, focused on interventions in public spaces for early childhood, was selected to participate in the Urban95 Academy Immersion Week at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Early Childhood Card Carioca

The decree signed by the mayor also links the Early Childhood Education Card (Cartão Primeira Infância Carioca) to the Little Cariocas Program, as one of the actions within the Food axis.

Coordinated by the Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance (SMAS), the benefit provides monthly top-ups of R$ 200 for the purchase of food. The card is intended for families in Rio de Janeiro with a monthly income of up to R$ 218 per person, who have children aged zero to four years and do not receive Bolsa Família (a Brazilian social welfare program).

The benefit is part of the City Hall's strategy to expand access to adequate nutrition among families with young children and is part of the integrated action foreseen by the new policy.

Early childhood

Early childhood, the period from gestation to six years of age, is a crucial phase for lifelong development. It is during this time that important foundations for physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development are built.

Therefore, the "Primeiros Cariocas" (First Cariocas) Policy seeks to ensure that early childhood is considered in a cross-cutting manner in municipal public policies. Instead of each agency acting in isolation, the proposal is for different areas to share information, establish priorities, and act in a coordinated way to respond to the needs of children and their families.