Beoog Biiga II (BBII), Tomorrow’s Child, Burkina Faso

• In Event: Food for education: strategies for sustainable school meals programs

Proposal

Beoog Biiga II (BBII), or Tomorrow’s Child, is a four-year project (2014–2018) implemented by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and its partners in the Bam and Sanmatenga provinces in Burkina Faso and funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition (MGD) Program. In BBII, which was an expansion of BBI, CRS aims to improve the literacy, health, and dietary practices of primary-school-aged children in Burkina Faso. BBII implementation activities include the provision of school meals and take-home rations; distribution of deworming pills, vitamins, and minerals; health and nutrition training; provision of school supplies and materials; school district administrator training; capacity building at the local, regional, and national levels; mentorship of girls; teacher training; creation of community saving and lending groups; establishment of a standardized reading assessment; establishment of libraries; and efforts to raise awareness about the importance of education.

CRS selected IMPAQ International, LLC (IMPAQ) to conduct impact and performance evaluations of the BBII program. The performance and impact evaluations were designed in parallel to maximize comparability in the outcome indicators and findings using qualitative and quantitative methods, but they follow different timelines. The performance evaluation spans three data collection periods: baseline (2015), midline (2017), and endline (2018). The baseline, midline, and endline rounds of the performance evaluation were structured to measure changes in outcomes over time and to inform the overall evaluation results on BBII core objectives. To accurately capture program performance over time, IMPAQ measured the same program indicators at all three data collection points. The impact evaluation, which measures the causal effect of the mentoring intervention on the literacy of school-aged girls in a subset of BBII program schools, spans only two data collection periods: baseline (2015) and endline (2018).

Overall, project stakeholders believe that BBII met local needs and led to improved literacy, hygiene, and nutrition. According to stakeholders, these improvements are primarily a result of introducing new evidence-based literacy techniques to teachers; training administrators to observe and coach teachers; supporting school canteens; distributing micronutrients to students; and teaching handwashing at school. Reading clubs, access to libraries, mentoring, and teacher training in health and nutrition also contributed to the project’s success.

The evaluation of BBII shows that the program has effectively helped targeted communities reach project goals:
• Grade 2 students’ ability to read at grade level increased by 17 percentage points during the life of the project.
• An impact evaluation on mentoring showed no impact on girls’ reading proficiency but a positive significant impact on boys.

Additionally, BBII influenced the attitudes and behaviors of parents and community members. Project stakeholders reported that parents and communities have more positive views toward educating children, especially girls. Handwashing is also believed to have increased in homes, markets, mosques, and restaurants in communities with BBII schools.

Author

• Desire Yameogo, Save the Children