Community-based childcare centres can combat poverty

Expanding access to childcare can create millions of jobs, according to a recent estimate by the World Bank. This expansion would benefit parents, particularly women, by providing them with more opportunities to participate in the workforce. As a result, they would enjoy improved financial outcomes, including increased savings and a greater ability to handle emergencies.

High-quality, affordable childcare centers benefit women in several ways. By enabling women who are not directly employed by the centers to care for their children at a subsidised cost while they pursue other earning opportunities. It reduces gender inequality in both professional and domestic settings. Additionally, it creates more jobs in the paid care sector. Community-based childcare centers are particularly effective at expanding access to childcare, especially for children younger than four years of age in poor communities.

Unfortunately, one in four children in Africa is not attending any form of early learning, which is particularly concerning for marginalized or poor-resourced communities.

The main reason for this is poverty, making most families unable to afford to pay for childcare services for their children. For this reason, some parents are keeping their children at home until they turn six years  entitling them to free education. This tendency is particularly pronounced among poor families who cannot afford ECD centers.

A report by the World Bank provides solid empirical evidence that investing in young children is one of the best investments that countries can make. It should be noted that children’s earliest experiences shape the architecture of the brain and determine their future development and well-being.

The government should prioritise and actively promote parent and community engagement, as well as low-cost models and programmes, to address the lack of access to early childhood development programmes.

These programmes are sustainable because of their emphasis on engaging caregivers, parents, and the family in programming as well as being points of community engagement, cohesion, and ownership. They are established at the community level, and they work towards holistic development that is physical, social, emotional, and cognitive) of young children aged 0-3 years meeting the needs and those of their caregivers, family, and community through a childcare setting. They contribute to the preparation and implementation of more sustainable policies at all systems levels in all countries.

New projections of global poverty by UN Women, UNDP, and the Pardee Center for international futures estimated that, globally, 388 million women and girls will be living in extreme poverty in 2022 (compared to 372 men and boys) and 62.8 percent of these would live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, rural women in poor regions are often left to bear the responsibility of providing for their families. And as of 2021, the World Bank estimated that the global poverty rate was 9.2 percent, which corresponds to approximately 689 million people living in extreme poverty, defined as having less than $1.90 per day to live on.

And it has been realized that lack of ECD provisioning is a big contributor to intergenerational poverty. This will help support poverty eradication programs like Parish Development Model in Uganda.

In fact, childcare benefits children, women, families, economies, and society. Childcare promotes gender equity by supporting women’s labor force participation which lacks in most rural African communities. Children in these centers have improved ECD scores.

Additionally, services like these lay a foundation for the proper psychological, physical, and social development of the child. A good example is the Lively Minds Programme. The programme operates in Uganda and Ghana. It aims at building the skills and confidence of marginalised, rural mothers to run educational play schemes and provide nurturing care for their children at home.

It has offered integrated interventions, in various forms in Ghana and Ugandan communities. The project has supported over 250 play schemes, reached 50,000 children, trained over 6000 teachers, and directly impacted 49,800 children and 11,000 mothers.

Governments, markets, and large non-governmental organisations often struggle to reach the most marginalised and vulnerable children, leaving a gap that community-based organizations can fill. To address this gap, it is crucial to focus on transforming the livelihoods of women by providing job opportunities through childcare in an organized manner.

Government investing in these centers is a smart and effective way to eliminate intergenerational transmission of poverty and promote women’s empowerment. It improves child development and maternal work. 

Roline Tusiime, Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS) Resident Research Associate