According to the World Bank, “61 million children [in Bangladesh] suffer from malnutrition and other developmental problems”. In addition, many Bangladeshi children do not receive sufficient stimulation and learning options.

In order to improve childhood development in Bangladesh, the World Bank created the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) in 2013. With one year left in the evaluation sample program, there is hope of continued success and growth.

The goal of the program is to find a largely successful, but low-cost way to foster development in an area where nutrition is a struggle.

To that end, SIEF focuses on teaching mothers how to stimulate and properly respond to the needs of their young children. SEIF provides each household in the program with “a Child Development Card, a booklet with key messages, and two picture books.”

Claudia Costin, the World Bank’s Senior Director for Education is highly enthusiastic about the program’s results. In a World Bank article, Costin said, “Working with parents to help them further bond with their children by stimulating their minds with books and storytelling is a very effective way to ensure healthy development and readiness to learn in school.”

One of SEIF’s success stories is young Musa, who is already benefitting from positive changes in his household.

“Then he saw how Musa was engaging with the books and it made him interested,” Musa’s mother told the World Bank. “Now when Musa asks too many questions, his father steps in and also teaches him.”

The first three years of a child’s life are the most important for stimulation and development. If these years are stunted by lack of nutrition and lack of proper stimulation, then their chances of success decrease.

“The new SIEF is the largest trust fund for impact evaluation in the World Bank and will be critical to filling global knowledge gaps in the years ahead in key thematic areas, a hallmark of the human development impact evaluation practice,” said World Bank Chief Economist, Ariel Fiszbein, when first seeking approval.

– Katherine Martin

Sources: World Bank 1, World Bank 2, UNICEF, Preval