United States Fund for UNICEF

This grant will support the development of new modules designed to gather nationally representative, household-level data on children’s early learning and parental participation in their education under an established survey program called the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. The information gathered will permit policymakers and service providers in developing countries, donors, and civil society to better understand progress related to the equitable learning 2030 Sustainable Development Goal.

This grant will support UNICEF’s Data Must Speak program that will improve global knowledge about what works and where (or not) in the development and use of data-driven school profiles by local education officials, school personnel, and parents to make performance gaps more visible and identify specific local actions for better learning. UNICEF will support data improvement, development of user-friendly school monitoring tools and related training modules for school personnel and community members, and evaluation of the effectiveness of these social accountability tools in expanding parent participation and accountability in education service delivery in up to 10 countries.

With this grant, UNICEF proposes to explore the pathways connecting women’s empowerment to early childhood care and development. UNICEF would investigate how women’s empowerment and early child care interact and affect the life outcomes of two generations. With the International Labour Organization and UN Women, UNICEF would convene an inter-agency advisory group to strengthen collaboration, coordinated research, and program and policy efforts to invest in better outcomes for two generations.