Peer-reviewed article

India - Community-Led Pilot in Meghalaya to Improve Early Childhood Development Outcomes

Ashi Kohli Kathuria, Deepika Anand · 1 Nov 2019

Abstract

Early childhood is the most crucial period for the overall development of children. Adequate health care, nutrition, security, safety, responsive caregiving, and opportunities for early learning during this period are essential for children to achieve their full human potential. Poor health and growth during early childhood has life-long consequences. Children need nurturing care during their early years to grow into healthy, intellectually capable, socially, and emotionally mature individuals. The World Health Organization (WHO) nurturing care framework encompasses five key early childhood development (ECD) elements - health, nutrition, security and safety, responsive caregiving, and opportunities for early learning. Committed to improving the overall development of the state’s children, the state leadership was keen to improve ECD policy, strengthen and expand the outreach of ECD programs at the community level. Learning from the experiences of other states, the Government of Meghalaya specifically wanted to test the feasibility of using the Meghalaya State Rural Livelihood Society (MSRLS) platform to promote ECD at the community level. This report provides a comprehensive description of the technical assistance (TA), the key results and outcomes, and the policy implications. Section one introduces the ECD conceptual framework and provides the background and overview of the TA engagement. Section two, context and rationale for the TA incudes a brief discussion of the need for ECD that highlights the evidence base for ECD interventions and the returns on ECD investments, followed by the current situation of ECD in India and Meghalaya. Section three is dedicated to the description of the feasibility study - its components, methodology, design, implementation, assessment, and results. Section four discusses the dissemination of results, the policy implications and the Government of Meghalaya’s proposal to scale-up ECD interventions in the state.