Improving Early Child Development and Wellbeing in Refugee and Marginalized Communities (CDMC)

Duration: 2017-2022

Location: Kenya

Reach: This is a research project with no direct beneficiaries.

Budget: $2 million (International Development Research Centre: $1 million; AKFC: $1 million)

Description:

Collaboratively led by the University of Toronto’s Alliance for Human Development and the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Human Development, this initiative is generating reliable evidence to support effective and scalable early childhood and family interventions for the most disadvantaged populations in low- and middle-income countries.

Through these activities the program is:

  • Building local capacity for technical excellence and uptake of research on the science of child development, especially as it pertains to low- and middle-income regions and marginalized populations.
  • Developing and validating culturally appropriate, gender-sensitive, and affordable interventions that will benefit a large number of children and families.
  • Establishing a sustainable research and policy platform to share programmes and practices globally, translate evidence into policy, and enable expansion, replication, and scale-up of effective interventions – nationally, regionally, and globally.
  • Creating a centre of excellence to advance a more global science of early human development through this north-south partnership.
  • Forging strong linkages with community, governmental, and civil society entities to drive policy dialogue and formulation locally, nationally, and globally.

 

Results:

Progress Update: 2019

Progress Update: 2021