Evaluating the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Program in the Philippines

1. Jere Behrman (U. of Pennsylvania) Paulita Duazo (OPS, U. of San Carlos) Sharon Ghuman (U. of Michigan) Socorro Gultiano (OPS, U. of San Carlos) Elizabeth King (World Bank) The ECD Study Team (Office of Population Studies, University of San Carlos, Cebu) World Bank April 5, 2005 Evaluating the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Program in the Philippines

2. Background • Health and nutrition at young ages affect important outcomes in childhood and later life • ECD programs increasingly seen as ways to: • Reduce malnutrition • Reduce infectious disease • Provide better pre-school learning environments • Few evaluations of ECD programs in developing countries • World Bank Research Fund Project with Harold Alderman PI on Uganda, Bolivia and the Philippines • Behrman, Jere R., Yingmei Cheng and Petra Todd, 2004, “Evaluating Preschool Programs when Length of Exposure to the Program Varies: A Nonparametric Approach,” Review of Economics and Statistics 86:1, 108-132.

3. 2002 ECCD Act: Objectives • To institutionalize a national program and a system for service delivery for children 0-6 • To provide capability building for parents and caregivers • To raise public awareness about the importance of early child care and development • To mobilize resources and establish viable financing mechanisms for ECCD To ensure survival and promote the total development of children, particularly those who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged (formalized in R.A. 8980/2002)

4. Quantitative ECD Goals • Reduce by 30% under-5 mortality • Decrease by 40% proportion of underweight children • Reduce by 30% proportion of children under 6 with anemia • Increase to 90% children aged 12-18 months fully immunized • Improve psychosocial & cognitive development of children • Increase to 75% children ages 3-5 attending daycare centers • Increase to 90% primary school completion rate for Grade 1 entrants

5. Millennium Development GoalsEast Asia and Pacific CountriesBy 2015, reduce 1990 child mortality by two-thirds

6. Millennium Development GoalsBy 2015, halve 1990 child malnutrition ratesand 90% of children immunized for measles

7. Millennium Development GoalsBy 2015, Net Primary Enrollment = 100%

8. The Filipino ECD Program • Goal:improve the psycho-social development and nutrition of young children • Began with pilot projects in 1999 • Three regions • Covers 10 provinces, 2.5 million households

9. ECD Program Mechanisms • Support to all provinces for select MCH programs: • Immunization • Management of Child Illness • Micronutrient Malnutrition Control • Parent Effectiveness Seminars • Grants to pre-selected municipalities to invest in service-provider packages • Implementation Support

10. Service Provider Specific Components • Key Providers: • Midwife • Day Care Worker • Child Development Worker • Day Care Mother • Services Supported: • Food and micronutrient supplementation • Growth monitoring • Child development monitoring and activities • Educating parents • Primary health care

11. ECD Evaluation Study • Aim: To evaluate Filipino ECD program through collection of longitudinal data in program and non-program regions • Baseline: representative sample of newborns and children below age 5 (N = 7,925) • Two rounds of follow up data • Evaluation analysis based on children who remained in same sample barangay (N = 6,693)

12. Region 8 Region 6 Program Areas: Regions 6 and 7 Control Area: Region 8 Region 7 Figure 1. ECD Study Regions

13. The Evaluation Study Sample Region 6: 24 municipalities 96 barangays Region 7: 14 municipalities 96 barangays Region 8: 57 municipalities 96 barangays

14. Schedule of Data Collection ROUND 1: April 2001 - November 2001 (8 months) Region 6 Jun 2001 - Oct 2001 Region 7 Apr 2001 - Oct 2001 Region 8 Aug 2001 - Nov 2001 ROUND 2: September 2002 - March 2003 (7 months) Region 6 Sep 2002 - Mar 2003 Region 7 Sep 2002 - Mar 2003 Region 8 Sep 2002 - Feb 2003 ROUND 3: September 2003 - January 2004 (5 months) Region 6 Sep 2003 - Jan 2004 Region 7 Sep 2003 - Jan 2004 Region 8 Sep 2003 - Dec 2003

15. Response Rates: Households NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDSRESPONSE RATE ROUND 1 ROUND2 ROUND3 R1-2 R1-3 REG 6 1,456 1,377 1,330 94.6 91.3 REG 7 1,959 1,849 1,817 94.4 92.8 REG 8 1,909 1,699 1,670 89.0 87.5 TOTAL 5,324 4.925 4,817 92.5 90.5 N.B. excludes migrants outside sample barangays (if incl., RP=92.8)

16. Response Rates: Children NUMBER OF CHILDRENRESPONSE RATE ROUND 1 ROUND2 ROUND3 R1-2 R1-3 REG 6 2,115 1,968 1,877 93.0 88.7 REG 7 2,913 2,694 2,639 92.5 90.6 REG 8 2,894 2,543 2,646 87.9 85.2 TOTAL 7,922 7,205 6,982 90.9 88.1 N.B. excludes migrants outside sample barangays (if incl., RP=92.1)

17. Evaluation Methodology Relation of Interest: ∆Yp-∆Ynp = a(∆Pp-∆Pnp)+ b(∆Xp-∆Xnp) +c(∆Zp-∆Znp) + (∆ep-∆enp) where ∆Y = Y3 – Y1, etc. Y = ECD outcomes P = receive ECD program NP = not receive ECD program X = child, family, community variables Z = unobserved variables e = error term

18. Participation in child feeding programs Percentage of children 0-4 years who participated in feeding programs

19. Legend: Region 8 Regions 6 & 7 For example, participation in infant feeding program 17.4 Estimated diff-in-diff impact is 12.1 8.5 8.1 Counterfactual 4.9 Before intervention After intervention Time

20. BUT NOT EXPERIMENT WITH RANDOM ASSIGMENT SO DIFFERENCES IN TREATMENT VS CONTROLS: PERCENT DISTRIBUTION OF PROGRAM MUNICIPALITIES BY INCOME CLASS There were 9 program municipalities in Region 7 during Round 1 (1NR).

21. PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS WITH COLLEGE EDUCATION N.B. Households present in all three rounds

22. PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLDS RESIDING IN URBAN AREAS N.B. Households present in all three rounds

23. PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLDS WITH HOUSES MADE OF STRONG MATERIALS N.B. Households present in all three rounds

24. PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLDS WITH REFRIGERATOR N.B. Households present in all three rounds