Scaling Up Early Childhood Development in Zambia: Quarterly Progress Report – Q3 2021

The project is being implemented in 15 health facility catchment areas from Kalomo, Choma, and Pemba districts of Southern Province and Nyimba district of Eastern Province. The project is funded by USAID and Grand Challenges Canada, with a total budget of $60,042,928.40. The project's scope includes the implementation of community-based parenting groups and book distribution at scale through the Maternity Waiting Homes (MWHs) and Safe Motherhood Action Group (SMAG) platform. The project is being implemented in partnership with Boston University School of Public Health and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. The project's goal is to improve early childhood development outcomes, including cognitive, language, and social-emotional development, as well as nutritional status. The project has made significant progress in implementing community-based parenting groups. As of the end of the reporting period, 98% of head mothers were conducting at least one community-based parenting group meeting per month, and 98% of caregiver-child pairs were attending at least one CBPG meeting per quarter. The project has also conducted remote training through the VIAMO platform, with 100% pick-up rates among SMAGs and health facility staff members. Parenting group meetings are a key component of the project, with a total of 3,322 meetings convened within the reporting period. The project has also made efforts to engage men in parenting group meetings, with 80 integrated (men and women) parenting group meetings convened and 386 men attending groups during the reporting period. Men attending groups have reported being happy to learn about their roles in raising their children and are learning about the importance of partnership with their wives. The project has also made progress in content development and recording, with each SUpErCDZ lesson repackaged into 5 VIAMO lessons. The lessons include a playful parenting campaign jingle developed by UNICEF and quiz questions to keep listeners engaged. The project has also prepared a short questionnaire for listeners to complete before and after the lessons were delivered. The project's implementation has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with adjustments made to implementation delivery to minimize the risk of infection for both team members and rural communities. The National Health Research Authority's temporal suspension of research activities had implications on SUpErCDZ M&E activities, but the project has continued to make progress in implementing community-based parenting groups and remote training. The project's geographic coverage includes Nyimba District in Eastern Province and Pemba, Choma, and Kalomo Districts in Southern Province. The project's reporting period is from July to September 2021, and the project's funding source is USAID, with 80% of the funding, and Grand Challenges Canada, with 20% of the funding.