Publication: Designing and Implementing Low-Cost Childcare Solutions: Lessons from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab
Loading...
Date
2023-11-30
ISSN
Published
2023-11-30
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This case study presents lessons learned by the Africa GenderInnovation Lab (GIL) and its partners from pilots of different models of low-cost childcare provision across four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: mobile crèches in Burkina Faso and Cameroon, fixed-location crèches in Ethiopia, and community-based childcare centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We also share findings from qualitative research conducted to inform the design of a new community-based childcare pilot in Cameroon. This case study does not intend to prescribe best practices, but instead to provide examples of the key questions, challenges and solutions encountered by project teams.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Cassidy, Rachel; Zighed, Roxane; Gokalp, Cansu Birce. 2023. Designing and Implementing Low-Cost Childcare Solutions: Lessons from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40824 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Do Men Really Have Greater Socio-Emotional Skills Than Women? Evidence from Tanzanian Youth(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-22)Individuals’ socio-emotional skills (SES), and their perceptions of their skill levels, matter for labor market outcomes and other welfare outcomes. Men appear to have higher levels of SES than women, but this gender gap is typically documented in self-reported measures. Few studies use measures beyond self-reports—or seek to measure SES granularly and rigorously in large samples, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This paper deploys novel sets of self-reported and behavioral measures of 14 SES in a sample of more than 4,000 male and female youth not in full-time education, employment or training, in urban and peri-urban Tanzania. The findings show that men score higher than women on all 12 positively-worded self-reported measures. In contrast, gender gaps in behavioral measures are only observed for a few skills, and are far smaller in magnitude. The paper provides suggestive evidence that this pattern reflects men’s overestimation of their own skills, rather than women’s underestimation. In particular, there is a larger gap between self-reported and behavioral measures among men. Men’s self-reports, and the gap between their self-reported and behavioral measures, are strongly correlated with measures of their social desirability and gendered beliefs about abilities—but this does not hold for women.Publication Evening the Credit Score? Impact of Psychometric Loan Appraisal for Women Entrepreneurs(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)Women’s lower rates of ownership of collateralizable assets are a constraint to accessing larger business loans. This paper tests the impact of using psychometric credit scoring as a substitute for collateral for loans up to US$7,500, via a randomized controlled trial with a microfinance institution in Ethiopia. The paper finds positive impacts on women’s access to credit, and survival of their firms during the COVID-19 pandemic and conflict. Firms that remained operational were profitable; but there is limited evidence of impact on firm growth under these circumstances. The study showcases the potential for using innovative technologies to extend entrepreneurial finance to underserved markets.Publication Evening the Credit Score(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-13)Despite gender parity in access to microfinance, and many group-based microfinance schemes favoring women, women face more difficulty than men in getting loans of larger size, longer duration, individual liability, and more flexible terms that may promote firm growth.1 In Ethiopia, as in many contexts where credit information systems are in their infancy, financial institutions typically impose stringent collateral requirements for larger loans. Women are less likely than men to own large, collateralizable assets such as housing, land, or vehicles due to inheritance practices, unequal land ownership laws, and social customs. Innovative solutions to replace or reduce the reliance on fixed-asset collateral may help to expand access to capital for growth-oriented women owned firms.Publication New Insights on Women’s Employment in Ethiopia’s Industrial Parks(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-10-01)Low take-up of job offers and high early turnover continue to affect employment of Ethiopia’s female factory workers. Despite starting factory work around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the women in our sample still left factory employment primarily for voluntary reasons unrelated to COVID-19. This is consistent with early separation being a longer-term feature of factory employment. Women who voluntarily left their factory jobs reported they had received wages close to the minimum of what they were expecting. Much of the COVID-related separations we observe are “voluntary”, with women choosing to leave factory jobs and mainly staying at home due to personal health concerns. Therefore, while measures to reinforce input chains and demand for factory orders remain key, immediate interventions to address workers’ health and safety concerns are crucial to counter voluntary quitting in times of a public health crisis.Publication The Effects of Childcare on Women and Children(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)This paper studies whether providing affordable childcare improves women’s economic empowerment and child development, using data from a sample of 1,990 women participating in a public works program in Burkina Faso. Of 36 urban work sites, 18 were randomly selected to receive community-based childcare centers. One in four women who were offered the centers used them, tripling childcare center usage for children aged 0 to 6 years. Women’s employment and financial outcomes improved. Additionally, child development scores increased. However, the analysis finds no significant effects on women’s decision-making autonomy, gender attitudes, or intrahousehold dynamics, suggesting the importance of considering multiple dimensions of childcare impacts.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Leveling the Playing Field(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-02)Structural sources of Africa’s inequality are rooted in laws, institutions, and practices that create advantages for a few but disadvantages for many. They include differences in living standards that come from inherited or unalterable characteristics, such as where people are born and their parents’ education, ethnicity, religion, and gender. They also arise from market and institutional distortions that privilege some firms, farms, and workers to access markets, employment, and opportunities while limiting access for the majority and limiting earning opportunities. "Leveling the Playing Field: Addressing Structural Inequalities to Accelerate Poverty Reduction in Africa" argues that policies to address high levels of structural inequality in Africa are also at the heart of what is needed to accelerate progress in reducing extreme poverty. There is nothing inevitable about structural inequality. Economies that put up barriers to opportunities can also remove and replace them with policies that create a level playing field. Indeed, across the world, countries where opportunities are distributed more fairly grow faster and have lower poverty incidence. Broadening access to opportunities represents one of Africa’s key prospects for raising productivity and earnings and accelerating poverty reduction. Leveraging the most recent data available for the region, "Leveling the Playing Field" provides recommendations aimed at improving the productive capacity of the poor, the ability of poor individuals to use their capacities for well-paying job opportunities, and the design of fair fiscal policies.Publication Greater Heights(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-12)Twenty-seven countries have reached high-income status since 1990. Ten of these are in the Europe and Central Asia region and have joined the European Union. Another 20 in the region have become more prosperous since the 1990s. However, their transition to high-income status has been delayed. These middle-income countries have found that the prospects for growth to high-income status have become even more difficult since the 2007–09 global financial crisis. This reflects partly a slowdown in structural reforms at home and partly the challenges associated with a deterioration in the global environment. The concern has emerged that many countries in the region may be caught in the middle-income trap, a phase in development characterized by a recurring deceleration in growth and by per capita incomes that are systematically below the high-income threshold. To ensure that these countries overcome the obstacles to growth and achieve progress toward high-income status, policy makers need to make the transition from a strategy driven largely by investment to a strategy that is supported by the importation and diffusion of global capital, knowledge, and technology and then to a strategy that complements these with innovation. The report Greater Heights: Growing to High Income in Europe and Central Asia relies on the 3i strategy described in World Development Report 2024—investment, infusion, and innovation—to propose policy options to assist middle-income countries in Europe and Central Asia in the effort to reach high-income status. Drawing on comprehensive empirical analysis, the report offers actionable recommendations that will enable policy makers to advance stronger economic growth across the region. Such a transition will require continued and sustained foundational reform to maximize the drivers of economic growth while pivoting to new transformative reforms to promote the development of more complex economic structures and institutions. These involve the need to discipline incumbents, boost the role of the private sector, strengthen the competitive environment, and reward merit. The emphasis on a strategy driven by innovation is also critically important for those countries that have already attained high-income status.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication World Bank Annual Report 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25)This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.