Cost-Effectiveness Studies of Early Childhood Interventions Serving Refugees

This project aims to address the needs of children in early childhood in humanitarian contexts through “low-cost” approaches that can be scaled quickly to serve as many children and families as possible. With funding from the LEGO Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, the Sesame Workshop is working in partnership with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), and BRAC to develop and deliver five early childhood development (ECD) interventions to children living in exceptional circumstances in Jordan, Lebanon, Bangladesh, and Colombia. This effort includes an evaluation component led by Global TIES for Children at NYU. The primary objectives of the evaluations are to estimate the effectiveness and the costs to produce effects of the five ECD programs. Penn GSE’s Professor Brooks Bowden was invited to lead the cost-effectiveness research with Penn SAS’ Professor Jere Behrman and the team from the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education (CBCSE).