Empowering Parents in Ensuring Children’s Well-Being in Zambia

• In Event: Ensure Positive Early Childhood Development and Education – Evidence from Home-, Community- and School-Based ECD Interventions

Proposal

The presentation will discuss the provision of home- and center-based approaches to early childhood development and education (ECD/E) in the Southern and Eastern provinces in Zambia through two projects. These projects have been implementing ECD/E approaches for over five years. The projects provided technical assistance to the Zambian Government to develop an ECE manual aimed to enhance caregiver knowledge and practices and supported center-based ECE. These activities were aligned with accelerated education programs aimed at young parents and adolescent mothers, who also participated in financial empowerment activities through Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs). Project monitoring results show that 59% of children aged 1-3 years who benefited from ECD improved their child development outcomes in language development and communication skills in 2024-2025 in the Southern provinces; 68% of learners supported through ECE improved their school readiness in 2023 in the Eastern provinces; and 98% of ECE leaners transitioned into primary education in 2025 in the Southern provinces. Parents who participated in VSLA activities under the project experienced a 164% increase in their incomes between years 1 and 2, and 82% invested in their children’s education. While these results show positive outcomes, the project is currently leading a five-year longitudinal comparative study to further explore how ECD outcomes influence school readiness, acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills, and retention rates in primary education. The study will also assess key predictors of child development and how factors such as parents’ foundational learning levels and VSLA participation influence key child development milestones. This panel discussion will reflect on the key results from the home-based ECD approaches applied under one project from the mixed methods endline evaluation as well as key factors influencing child development outcomes from the first round of the longitudinal study. This session will also highlight key successes and lessons learned from long-term ECD/E programming and scaling-up ECD programming approaches through the institutionalization of the ECE manual at the national level.

Author

• Brian Phiri, CARE Zambia