G-Mond Policy Brief n°10: Cash or information? Changing parental behavioral for early child development in Nicaragua

Policy Brief n°10 - May 2014

Title: “Cash or information? Changing parental behavioral for early child development in Nicaragua”
Author: Karen Macours
Abstract:

In many developing countries, young children suffer from profound delays in early cognitive development. This can seriously impair their success as adults, in part because investments in schooling and other dimensions of human capital will have low returns if children do not have adequate levels of cognitive and social skills before they enter school. Understanding the causes for these delays and identifying interventions that address these deficits are hence important priorities for research. Evidence from a series of evaluations in Nicaragua suggest that, beyond cash transfers, interventions that manage to change parents’ behavior can achieve impacts that are sustained in the long-term.

• Download the Note G-MonD n°10(pdf)