COMM CHILD CARE & NU

closed

The Community Child Care and Nutrition Project forms a key part of the Government's poverty reduction program and aims to strengthen an ongoing program of home based child care. The basic objectives are as follows : a) improve the cost effectiveness of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare ( ICBF ) operations; b) support the institutional development of ICBF; and c) evaluate, improve and maintain the quality of home based child care ( HBI ). The project will finance the main investment costs of the HBI expansion during 1990/95. It will consist of the following components : 1) policy development - i) enhancing the effectiveness of ICBF resource use by establishing revised financing arrangements for the CAIPs and reducing the ICBF's budget contribution to the program and ii) improving the production efficiency of Bienestarina ( an important food supplement ); 2) management development - strengthening the management capacity of ICBF in a number of areas, including implementing monitoring and impact evaluation systems for the HBIs on a national scale; and 3) service support - through assistance in consolidating gains of the HBI program; improving quality through introduction of systematic training for community mothers and other HBI participants; and by providing access to home improvement credits to community mothers.