How Early Childhood Interventions Can Reduce Inequality: An overview of Recent Findings

Savedoff for their helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Inter-American Development Bank. Foreword ECI programs represent an important area for government intervention since they have the advantage of " killing two birds with one stone " in the fight against poverty. Participating children are provided critical extra support and attention, which improves their school readiness and affords them a better chance of breaking the cycle of poverty. Custodial care services offer participating women opportunities for increased labor force participation and higher earnings. Furthermore, ECI programs represent a growth area for the Inter-American Development Bank, with more than US$ 2.7 billion  about 4% of the value of the portfolio of loans approved since 1985  supporting early childhood initiatives. IDB investments in ECI programs can be found either as freestanding projects or as components of other social projects. Interventions run the gamut from construction of day-care centers to support for specific early childhood health and nutrition programs, institutional strengthening, or parental education campaigns. This paper provides a much-needed inventory of the various benefit streams that result from such programs, as well as a carefully considered rationale for increased government support to the sector. The paper's conclusion offers some guidelines for policy design, implementation, and evaluation that we hope will be of use to IDB project teams as well as to governments throughout the region interested in establishing or evaluating ECI programs.