How evidence refocused improvements to early child care in Colombia
Context
Policies targeting early childhood development have received considerable attention recently, with growing recognition of their potential to have lasting positive effects. The Colombian government, in its National Development Plan for 2010–2014, Prosperidad Para Todos (Prosperity for All), announced that early childhood development and its new ‘From zero to forever’ strategy were the centrepieces of its social policy.
One of the main components of this strategy was upgrading preschools that provided partly subsided day care and 60 per cent of daily nutritional requirements to children from low socio-economic backgrounds. These preschools, called hogares infantiles, are run by the government agency, ICBF. A private NGO, Fundación Éxito, planned to provide different enhancements to the upgraded preschools.
This upgrade to hogares infantiles mejorados (improved preschools) included hiring more and better-qualified personnel and delivering a one-time pedagogical endowment for toys, books and other materials. Fundación Éxito’s enhancements included further nutritional inputs, pedagogical teacher training and a reading programme for teachers, children and parents.
Researchers from the University of Los Andes and the Institute of Fiscal Studies, who had previously cooperated with ICBF to evaluate another government early childhood development programme, convinced ICBF to stagger the expansion of the preschool upgrades to allow them to do a randomised evaluation. The 3ie-supported evaluation measured effects of the upgrades on children’s cognitive and socio-emotional development and their nutritional status.
According to the research team, the national law mandating evaluations, its experience conducting evaluations with the government (particularly ICBF) and the potential for the impact evaluation to support affordable upgrades to the childcare centres, based on public-private partnership, were all conditions favourable to evidence use.
Evidence
The study findings showed that ICBF’s upgrade, by itself, had no impact on children’s cognitive development, language development and school readiness, although the combined upgrade did. It also showed that the nutritional component that Fundación Éxito was supporting was not leading to better nutritional outcomes. In fact, children were better off with the existing nutritional component offered by ICBF, because Fundación Éxito’s nutritional component put them at risk of excess weight.
Evidence impacts
Type of impact: Change policies or programmes
Decision makers use findings from an evaluation or systematic review to adjust their programming to fix targeting, cash transfer amounts, training modules or other factors that inhibit the policy or programme’s ability to achieve its intended impacts.
This is one of 3ie’s seven types of evidence use. Impact types are based on what we find in the monitoring data for an evaluation or review. Due to the nature of evidence-informed decision-making and action, 3ie looks for verifiable contributions that our evidence makes, not attribution.
Read our complete evidence impact typology and verification approach here.
Close windowInformed by findings showing that Fundación Éxito’s nutritional component was not leading to better nutritional status and that children were better off with the ICBF’s existing nutritional component, Fundación Éxito decided to phase out its funding to the upgraded childcare centres and used further evaluation evidence to refocus its investments.
Type of impact: Improve the culture of evidence use
When decision makers or implementers demonstrate positive attitudinal changes towards evidence use or towards information the research team provides. Examples include strengthening monitoring and evaluation systems, increasing understanding of evidence and openness to using it, integrating these systems more firmly into programming or commissioning another evaluation or review.
This is one of 3ie’s seven types of evidence use. Impact types are based on what we find in the monitoring data for an evaluation or review. Due to the nature of evidence-informed decision-making and action, 3ie looks for verifiable contributions that our evidence makes, not attribution.
Read our complete evidence impact typology and verification approach here.
Close windowContinuous engagement during and after the 3ie-supported evaluation, with support and championing by Fundación Éxito, led ICBF, the research team from the Universidad de Los Andes and Fundación Éxito to collaborate again for an evaluation of early childhood stimulation through parenting support centres, called Familia, Mujer e Infancia (FAMI) community homes in Colombia
Type of impact: Inform the design of other programmes
Where findings from the evaluation or review inform the design of a programme(s) other than the one(s) evaluated.
This is one of 3ie’s seven types of evidence use. Impact types are based on what we find in the monitoring data for an evaluation or review. Due to the nature of evidence-informed decision-making and action, 3ie looks for verifiable contributions that our evidence makes, not attribution.
Read our complete evidence impact typology and verification approach here.
Close windowThe later study of parenting support through FAMI community homes took into account lessons from the 3ie-supported evaluation of preschools. According to the study team, the earlier research informed training and supervision for structured educational and nutritional inputs into early childhood parenting through the community centre facilitators. Encouraging findings from the later evaluation led the government to increase support for these inputs for improving family-based early childhood care.
Suggested citation
International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), 2019. How evidence refocused improvements to early child care in Colombia (online summary), Evidence Impact Summaries. New Delhi:3ie.
Evidence impact summaries aim to demonstrate and encourage the use of evidence to inform programming and policymaking. These reflect the information available to 3ie at the time of posting. Since several factors influence policymaking, the summaries highlight contributions of evidence rather than endorsing a policy or decision or claiming that it can be attributed solely to evidence. If you have any suggestions or updates to improve this summary, please write to influence@3ieimpact.org
Last updated on 1st March 2019