1 Early Childhood Development (0-4) Project Presentation to Renewal Workshop 12/13 March 2007 Dr. Miriam Altman Executive Director Employment, Growth & Development Initiative Human Sciences Research Council

2 HSRC emphasis: Linking employment to social delivery Objective: Substantial job creation through responsible expansion of community based “care” services procured by government AIDS-sensitive but not AIDS-specific Government has committed to providing ECD services (0-4) to all poor children by Committed large financial resources and willing to commit more if capacity demonstrated HSRC calculated potential creation of 340,000 net new jobs. Programmes under design at much smaller scale. Roll-out has been slow, in part because ECD sector very fragmented and weak

3 Programme elements Best practice developing country case studies in scaling up community based social welfare services to some minimum standards. Background investigations on SA context Identifying alternative institutional models that might be tested through demonstration project: Alternative job hierarchies in ECD provision and supervision, and the fit of low skill service providers. Alternative institutional models to enable scaling up in context of fragmentation and capacity constraints. Knowledge sharing through round-tables and web based document coordination

4 Programme elements: demonstration project Demonstration project – Purpose: to test alternative approaches identified Elements (over 5 years) Identify sites and implementation partners Identify delivery model to be tested Including job hierarchies, home vs centre based, etc Monitoring and evaluation key Capacity development Impact assessment and indicators

5 Research issues Targeting Implementation structures: roles of govt, NGOs, CBOs, private providers Alternative program design Potential for auxiliary activities Capacity needed for scaling up Policy processes around implementation

6 Project structure and partners Project overseen by reference committee convened by the Dept of Education, and comprised of social departments, provincial reps, Unicef, other experts. Implementation: HSRC, provincial agency responsible for ECD (0-4) funding, local NGOs and CBOs implementing