Nyabihu, 8^th February 2023 - The National Child Development Agency (NCDA) in collaboration with Western Province and districts and other partners launched the celebration of Early Childhood Development Day dedicated to raise awareness for improved ECD services delivery at community level.

The ECD day celebration is the bi-annual event that will take place at each district with objective to assess the interventions on ECD programmes and raise awareness for improved ECD services delivery at community level through effective involvement of all stakeholders including parents, community front-line workers, local leaders, CSOs ECD services providers, private sector and other relevant partners at decentralized levels.

Speaking at the occasion, the NCDA Director General, Mrs Nadine Umutoni Gatsinzi said “Children of today are the future of the country. I call upon all stakeholders in ECD interventions to double-effort in operationalising ECD settings to ensure Rwandan receive adequate ECD services for their healthy growth.”

The Governor of Western Province who was also, Hon. Habitegeko François, told parents that home is the backbone of the child wellbeing.  “I want to remind parents that Early Childhood Development centres are not clinical centres where children with different problems go for treatment. Most of the parents think that ECD settings are there to treat malnutrition and stunting cases. The child’s growth is primarily the responsibility of both parents starting from home.” Said Hon Habitegeko.

At the celebration, 10 best Home and Community-based ECDs which performed well, were awarded with playing materials toolkit that will support in brain stimulation and school readiness of the children under these ECD settings.

THE LAUNCH AND DISSEMINATION OF THE  2^nd EDITION OF ECD SCORE CARD

At the same occasion, Rwanda Governance (RGB) presented the 2^nd edition of ECD Score Card, the study covers Early Childhood interventions implemented from 2018 to 2021 at household, community and center levels in all districts with particular attention to districts with high rates of acute malnutrition and stunting.

The ECD scorecard launched is built on six pillars aligned to ECD interventions namely: nutrition, health, WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) services, parenting education, school readiness and as well as child protection and inclusiveness.

The objective of the study was to evaluate and document evidence-based results on ECD interventions in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of ECD services as well as the ECD program’s sustainability to inform policy makers.

Speaking at the launch, Dr. Felicien Usengumukiza, Head of Research Department at RGB, called on local administration to strengthen ECD supervisions to enhance effective delivery service. “We are requesting local authorities to regularly visit these ECD settings at least once a month to supervise their activities from cell to district level, because they do not regularly supervise them.” he added.

Findings from the study revealed that health and nutrition are the best performing pillars with a score of 82% and 78% respectively, while the child protection and inclusiveness is the least performing pillar with the score of 43.6%.