Welcome to the PATH early childhood development knowledge hub

From 2012 to 2024, PATH and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation partnered to support the Ministries of Health in Mozambique and Kenya to design and pilot health system interventions that promote optimal development for young children.

Along the journey, other partners and donors joined this endeavor and Mozambique and Kenya became learning hubs for promoting early childhood development in the health sector. Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, and Malawi have subsequently adapted materials and approaches tried and tested in Mozambique and Kenya to their context.

KNOWLEDGE HUB

Explore our resources on early childhood development

This knowledge hub is both for policymakers and implementers. We share national and subnational health and nutrition policies, strategies, plans, and guidelines that integrate ECD. These are living examples of how relevant content from the Nurturing Care Framework for ECD can be integrated into existing normative documents when dedicated technical assistance is available. Finally, where evidence or testimonies exist on how these materials were put to use and with what results, these are presented alongside the resources. Some of these assessments are formative and small in scope, so the tools may require additional testing. We invite partners to critically engage with the relevant tools, get inspired by them, adapt them to their realities, and generate more rigorous evidence of their effectiveness.

Most of the materials shared here, however, are more practical in nature. These are job aids, training manuals, and quality improvement tools inspired by global packages, such as Care for Child Development and Thinking Healthy. They have been subject to several rounds of iteration, including through human centered design, to fit the realities of health systems in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Finally, evidence or testimonies on how these materials were put to use and their results are presented alongside the resources. Some of these assessments are formative and small in scope, so the tools may require additional testing. We invite partners to critically engage with the relevant tools, get inspired by them, adapt them to their realities, and generate more rigorous evidence of their effectiveness.

“… what PATH did in the health sector, getting spaces for children to play and having tools and materials in hospitals that promote play and early childhood development, it has greatly shifted the focus of leaders, communities, families, and organizations to invest more in ECD.”
Rosella Rasanga
Former First Lady, Siaya County, Kenya

Resources by topic

Explore resources by relevant topics. Click any of the items to view our available resources.

“In general, as a legacy, I consider that PATH strengthened the integration of ECD at the health sector level. This can be measured by the data tools where ECD indicators were integrated, by the posters that were created, by the training manuals that were developed, and by the studies that were carried out.”
Arla Alfandega
Division of Child Health, Department of Family Health, Ministry of Health, Mozambique

Resources by type

Looking for a specific type of resource? Click any item to view specific types of resources.

Government Policies

Sectoral Technical Guidelines

Job Aids

Capacity Building Tools

Evidence Base

Have you read or used some of the materials in this hub?

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Our partners

The design, implementation and assessments of the ECD interventions and tools presented here have been generously supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, UNICEF Mozambique, the Bainum Family Foundation, Big Win Philanthropy, and USAID.