Concerns that the African child is being tailored to be a "global child," alongside other homogenizing and dominating projections, such as early learning and development standards (ELDS), have increased. African communities need to be assured that global standards and global indicators will not further homogenize nations and thereby risk devaluation of traditional African practices. This article describes the process of developing early learning and development standards in Uganda. It cautions that, while the project aims at "helping" Uganda adopt "best practices" that are working well elsewhere, culture is the heart of Africans, which may not coincide with a large part of standards originally developed outside the region. Declaring a "best practice" only signifies that a program model is favored by a particular stakeholder group, such as the originators of the program. "Best practices" have also been known for their failure to address issues of culture and context (among others), and for the limitations of a positivist approach. Thus, importing early learning programs can interrupt the transmission of locally valued cultural knowledge and practices and undermine the diversity of voices, knowledge sources, ways of life, and support for raising children in local conditions in receiver countries and communities The article asserts that narrowing of curriculum scope can be a shortcoming of any set of standards. If Ugandans agree to adopt ELDS, then it has two options. One is to have different ELDS for each region or ethnic group. The second option is to identify the common best practices within different ethnic regions of the country. These culturally oriented best practices and expectations would then form the core of the standards. Communities using these standards would also be allowed to incorporate culturally relevant expectations into the process to make it workable in their circumstances.