Ecuador: Nimble messaging to improve Early Child Development in Ecuador

Some 24 percent of children under the age of five in Ecuador are stunted, according to World Bank figures, and reversing this in the early years is critical to building human capital so all children can thrive and succeed. The Government of Ecuador is seeking to change these statistics by improving child nutrition during the first 1000 days of life, a key development period. They are revamping an existing nationwide home visiting program where trained staff, Educators, discuss prenatal care, early child development, healthy nutrition, breastfeeding, and hygiene. Due to COVID-19 these serves transitioned to virtual and hybrid models of implementation.  Using administrative data, the evaluation will test the impact of two complementary interventions.  The first sends text messages to Educators twice a week to promote improved understanding of the virtual and hybrid implementation protocols, and to help keep Educators motivated for high quality service delivery.  The second intervention the evaluation tests is whether sending text messages directly to caregivers of children under one year of age with information, reminders, and positive encouragement to implement the healthy behaviors the standard services promote.  The evaluation team will use both administrative data (never before used for this purpose) as well as phone surveys to estimate impacts of each intervention on Educator compliance with protocols, service quality as well as staff retention and on caregiver knowledge and behaviors as well as child development, respectively.