Fostering Early Childhood Development in Low-Resource Communities: Evidence from a Scalable Parenting Intervention in Tanzania

Speaker: Margaret Leighton, University of St Andrews

Abstract: This paper reports preliminary evidence on the effectiveness of a scalable early child development programme being piloted in rural Tanzania. The core of the intervention is a caregiver training course led by local facilitators, targeting caregiver-child interactions and teaching about home-based stimulation activities for young children. After two years of implementation, the intervention has led to improvements in the development of 3-year olds of roughly 0.25 of a standard deviation. Detailed data on caregivers suggests these improvements are due to a combination of changes in the type and frequency of caregiver-child interactions, as well as the quality of play materials in the home.