This report presents the result of a study of the importance of investments in early childhood development and quality of education on Sustainable Development Goal attainment and on key health, education and economic indicators described in l’Étude Nationale Prospective: Cote d’Ivoire 2040 (National Prospective Study – ENP).
The study examined three groupings of interventions: (1) conditional cash transfers and pre-primary education, (2) maternal and child health programmes, and (3) quality of education. The interventions were analyzed individually and in combination to identify synergies. Using these interventions to orient the analyses, three categories of scenarios were developed: (1) Base scenario, which assumes current levels of investment do not change; (2) Moderate scenarios, which assume additional investments in the groups of interventions are made; and (3) Strong scenarios, which assume investments double the moderate scenario. The impact of these scenarios on reducing the societal gender gap was also analyzed.
The key messages from the analysis are:
- Maternal and child health programs are the least costly and contribute the strongest effects on health indicators and on the SDG.
- Conditional cash transfers could improve pre-primary enrollment, and the effect on the population covered by the policy is significant, but its effects on overall nutritional indicators are weaker than expected relative to its cost.
- Interventions improving the quality of education, by expanding infrastructure (through the installation of latrines and increasing access to electricity), improving the training of teachers (by increasing the proportion of teachers with a university degree and their job stability), and reducing the student-teacher ratios all contribute to reducing the dropout rate and an increase in the proportion of the population who finish primary and secondary schooling. These interventions produce economic spillovers that increase over time and are critical in achieving socioeconomic goals including the reduction of the gender gap in education and in the labor force.
- The current investment levels of today are not sufficient for SDG achievement.
The study was conducted in partnership with the Ministry of Planning and Development and the Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities Programme (TRECC), using the iSDG Cote d’Ivoire model, an integrated policy simulation tool developed by the Millennium Institute in partnership with the Government of Cote d’Ivoire.