The Effects of Childcare on Women and Children: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation, 2019

Baseline Survey

The government of Burkina Faso through its Youth Employment and Skills Project (PEJDC) recruited 10,255 young women (85%) and men (15%) in 49 communes to implement labor-intensive public works (“PTR-HIMO”, in French) in all regions of the country from mid-July 2019.

The eligibility conditions were:
i) being a Burkina Faso citizen;
ii) out of school or never enrolled in school;
iii) not a former beneficiary of the project; and
iv) aged 16 to 35.

PTR-HIMO participants were selected through a call for applications for the public work scheme in each commune by the government. The childcare intervention was designed to address the constraint that childcare responsibilities impose on women’s time. Prior to the intervention, female public works participants typically organized themselves by identifying some among them to look after their children while the others were conducting the public works. The PEJDC project team developed the “mobile creches” as an innovative childcare intervention to formalize childcare responsibilities by establishing a quality source of childcare that would allow women to focus on productive activities. This development process involved close collaboration with the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Women. The intervention was introduced as a pilot in Manga, one of the communes of a preceding World Bank-financed public works project. The mobile creches childcare intervention was integrated in the public works component of the PEJDC to follow participants as they move from work site to work site.

The intervention includes:
i) availability during PTR-HIMO working hours of full coverage tents or existing safe spaces that offer an environment designed specifically for children aged 0 to 6 years, with added protection from the sun, dust, inclement weather, and potential accidents;
ii) two nutritious meals per day
iii) low-cost toys and learning materials; and
iv) information for parents on childcare and nutrition based on contents from Burkina’s national program of parental education.

The maximum capacity for each childcare center was 50 children. Satellite creches were also introduced close to the public works site to allow breastfeeding infants to remain close to their mothers. Each childcare center was operated by 7 to 10 public works participants who received a 3-day training to become “brigadieres assistantes maternelles” (BAMs) and would then attend to children in the centers. Interested participants at each public works site were asked to volunteer. Volunteers were screened based on a set of selection criteria, after which 10 volunteers from each site were selected to receive a 3-day training before starting to operate the childcare centers. BAMs received the same compensation as other brigadiers and worked the same schedule of hours but at the childcare centers instead of working in the labor-intensive public works assigned to their peers.

BAMs continued to receive the same 37,000 FCFA monthly wage for each month they worked at the childcare centers after the public works ended. Centers were supported by supervision visits from government education and social workers. Parents were asked to provide a nominal contribution of approximately USD 6 per month for snacks, although this was on a voluntary basis and payment was not enforced. During the public works, the childcare centers officially operated during the same hours as the public works, i.e., 8 am to 2 pm. In practice, the centers were open as early as 6 am to welcome the children.