Non-governmental organizations" involvement in child development in developing countries

Such activities are defined broadly to include activities for children 0-6 years, as well as their families and communities. Of 47 NGO"s contacted, 35 said they were directly involved in activities designed to address the needs of children. The NGO"s include PVO"s involved in relief and/or development, foundations, and the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development housed at UNICEF. In a semi-structured interview, NGO"s were asked to report on their current activities in child development, support modalities, evaluation efforts, collaboration, lessons learned, and future directions. All interviews were conducted February-July 1991. Findings were as follows. (1) Activities. A few NGO"s have an integrated approach to early childhood care and development; others focus on one aspect, such as child survival. The majority, however, see child development in the context of family and community development. Thus, they describe child development activities in broad terms. The 35 NGO"s identified activities in 10 areas which they associate with child development. Health-related activities are most frequent (80% of the NGO"s), followed by education (77%), economic development (54%), disaster relief (49%), and development education (46%). Forty percent of the NGO"s are involved in basic care (for children living in the street and in orphanages), 34% in water/sanitation, 34% in food security, 25% in natural resource management, and 19% in family planning. These activities take various forms: service delivery, educating caregivers, community development, strengthening natural resources, advocacy, and research. (2) Program support modalities. NGO"s use various modalities to support activities for children: public education and advocacy (97% of the NGO"s), training (89%), technical assistance (86%), and program development/institution building (86%) are the most common. NGO"s also use gifts-in-kind or commodities (49%), direct community service/development (40%), research (40%). and sponsorship (20%). (3) Collaboration. NGO"s collaborate at all levels with many private organizations and public agencies. They say "collaboration" is essential to their work in child development. Such collaboration is designed to facilitate program implementation. They identify a need for more collaboration around child development in order to exchange information, adapt to local conditions, and broaden their scope. (4) Monitoring and evaluation. Some NGO"s believe that ongoing evaluation is intrinsic to their program goals; others do not. Evaluation criteria vary, depending on the type of activity. Many NGO"s are interested in strengthening their evaluation procedures and broadening their criteria for program impact. However, they are constrained by program priorities and cost. (5) Lessons learned. The majority of NGO"s say that their experience has shown that a community development approach is the best approach to child development. They also argue that programs must adapt to local needs and build on local expertise. Some observe that programs in developing countries can benefit from the U.S. experience and vice versa. NGO"s have learned lessons about the need for sustainable programs, leadership among donors, integration of services for children and families, and support for all aspects -- psychosocial and spiritual -- of the child"s development. (6) Future directions. The majority of NGO"s say they will continue to address the needs of children through family and community development activities, and anticipate few changes. However, several have declared an explicit early childhood initiative. Programs for women will be a priority for nearly 25% of the NGO"s; others intend to strengthen their evaluation and research components and/or advocacy efforts. Challenges to future involvement in child development include adequate funding, viable programming strategies, collaboration and leadership. (Author abstract)