Improving Parental Investments in Children: Experimental Evidence from The Gambia

We study two early childhood programs in The Gambia for children between 0 and 3 years of age. The basic version of the program, called Baby Friendly Community Initiative (BFCI), provides parents with child health and nutrition information delivered through home visits and community meetings. A second version, called BFCI+, is center-based and adds cognitive stimulation to the basic version of the program through activities with children. Villages were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the program or to a control group that received neither. The BFCI+ program had moderate impacts on parental investments in children in terms of resources and time. Child language development improved for well-off parents or parents in the more well-off region. Poorer parents invested more in time spent with the children, whereas those who were more materially well-off spent more financial resources on the children. The basic version of the program, the BFCI, had no detectable impacts.