Author(s)
Orazio Attanasio, Helen Baker-Henningham, Raquel Bernal, Costas Meghir, Diana Pineda, Marta Rubio-Codina

This paper evaluates the effects of the implementation of a structured early stimulation curriculum combined with a nutritional intervention through public large-scale parenting support services for vulnerable families in rural Colombia, known as FAMI, using a clustered randomized controlled trial. We randomly assigned 87 towns in rural areas to treatment and control and 1,460 children younger than 1 year of age were assessed at baseline. The interventions were also complemented with training, supervision and coaching of FAMI program facilitators. We assessed program effects on children’s nutritional status, and on cognitive and socio-emotional development; as well as on parental practices. The interventions had a positive and significant effect on a cognitive development factor based on the Bayley-III of 0.15 standard deviations. We also report a reduction of 5.8 percentage points in the fraction of children whose height-for-age is below -1 standard deviation. We do not find any effects on socio-emotional development. We report positive and statistically significant effects on the quality of the home environment (0.34 SD).

JEL Codes
J13: Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
I10: Health: General
I20: Education and Research Institutions: General
H43: Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
Keywords
early childhood development
parenting
early stimulation
program scale-up