By Joseph Maina
The Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW)—East Africa project, supported by the Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is expanding opportunities for women to fully realize their social and economic potential.
The transformative project implemented in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda brings together several like-minded organizations committed to advocating for child-friendly and women-focused policy interventions that empower, dignify, and uphold the rights and welfare of women and children.
A recent report by GrOW-East Africa categorically states that “Investing in women and adolescent girls is essential to improving the well-being of families and communities, boosting local and national economies, and ensuring sustainable development.”
This is particularly true in Africa, where conventional gender roles still disadvantage women by limiting their education, career, and personal, social, and economic growth opportunities.
For example, a policy brief by one of the project partners in Ethiopia. Explains that “Childcare limits women’s time for paid work.” Thus, providing quality childcare services is essential for enhancing women’s labor force participation.
The GrOW EA project, which started in 2020 and will end this year, has been supporting and promoting quality and affordable early childcare services, which are efficient and impactful approaches to empowering mothers. The following are some of the case studies.
Quality Childcare in Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, a two-year study in the Addis Ababa, Adama, and Debre Birhan regions revealed how subsidized and enhanced quality community-based childcare services can improve women’s economic well-being and empowerment while promoting Early Childhood Development (ECD).
The research conducted by ChildFund Ethiopia, Children Believe, Tesfa Berhan Child and Family Development Organization, and Addis Ababa University showed remarkable improvement in women’s employment by 19 percentage points (pps), business ownership by 39 pps, and monthly earnings by 1,198 birrs.
Interventions included establishing community-based childcare centers, developing training packages, and providing training on ECD and childcare center management for the workforce.
Women were organized into self–help groups facilitated with initial capital and capacity-building training. In addition to impacting individual women, the interventions also helped improve the overall quality of life in the household.
Notably, household food insecurity was reduced by 16 percentage points. The research also found a decreased depression score by 1.6 points, translating to a 22.8% reduction, and increased fathers’ involvement in childcare activities by 14 percentage points, a 23% increase.
Purpose-built EDCs in Rwanda
In Rwanda, where there is strong policy support for women’s employment as a driver of their social empowerment, with the backing from the GrOW EA initiative, the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) sought the best approaches for Early Development Centers (EDCs), focusing on what rural mothers found most helpful.
However, what was clear to the researchers was that Rwanda’s favored policy in recent years has been institutional childcare, a nursery school for children under four. When the report was published in October 2023, the policy for children aged four and below was still being developed.
The policy was seen to assume that individual mothers of under-4-year-olds would take responsibility for their children’s early socio-cognitive development, supported by early development centers (EDCs).
Such an arrangement was untenable with the broader goal of integrating mothers into the labor market.
An alternative involves using childminders in home-based EDCs, where mothers take in other people’s children and earn money by looking after them—or taking the children with them to work or the family farm. Mothers saw none of these as satisfactory solutions to their childcare quagmire.
Finally, the researchers settled on purpose-built EDCs established at the village level, with trained personnel in areas appropriate for children’s ages. These EDCs are adequately equipped to ensure good physical care and cognitive and social development.
“The preferred solution is a purpose-built center within short walking distance. This should accept all children from perhaps as young as 18 months if extra care could be drafted in, or else from about two years and six months,” the study recommended.
Ideally, the EDC would shoulder some of the current burdens of unpaid care, which include providing two meals, some personal care such as a shower, and pick-up and collection. All these would give the mothers the maximum opportunity to engage with social and work life outside the home.
POWER model in Uganda
In Uganda, a joint project by Makerere University, Care, and the independent policy think tank Economic Policy Research Institute studied the mechanisms for changing gender and social norms (GSNs), public perceptions, and Unpaid Care Work (UCW) attitudes.
They tested the efficacy of a novel socio-economic model, POWER (Promoting, Organising, Working, Engaging, and Researching out), in shifting GSNs’ attitudes toward unpaid care work.
They found that Uganda had yet to capture the care economy in national accounts due to a lack of reliable estimates. They also inferred that, even though the Uganda Employment Policy (2011) recognizes Early Child Development (ECD) centers, the government had yet to follow the policy recommendations to set up ECD facilities to help working mothers.
Through the POWER model, the researchers observed significant shifts in perceptions and attitudes towards UCW, with increased recognition due to a change in mindsets, “what women can do, men can also do,” and vice versa.
A redistribution and reduction of care and domestic work activities increased women’s time spent on leisure and paid activities while decreasing their time spent in unpaid care and domestic work. For men, there was reduced time spent on leisure but a corresponding increase in time spent on paid and community activities.
Also, the researchers observed a “tremendous” mindset shift recognition among men and women regarding penalizing women for failure to perform UCW activities and shaming or mocking a man found performing unpaid care and domestic work.
Kidogo model in Kenya
Across the borders in Kenya, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) observes that women spend disproportionately more time on unpaid work, such as childcare and household chores, than men, which impedes their participation in paid work.
“The challenges women face in balancing childcare and paid work are compounded in low-income urban contexts where employment opportunities are limited, and fragmented social networks often mean that mothers cannot rely on kin to provide childcare support. Work-related constraints such as long working hours and workplace environments that are not conducive for parenting obligations such as exclusive breastfeeding further frustrate women’s ambitions,” APHRC, which is also part of the GrOW EA initiative, noted.
To plug these gaps sustainably, Kidogo, a social enterprise that manages a network of daycare centers across East Africa, improves women’s access to high-quality, affordable early childhood care and education to support their children’s healthy growth and development.
“Addressing the burden of childcare for mothers in informal settlements enhances their opportunities to participate in gainful employment, which, in turn, may contribute to improved nurturing care for their children. By improving the quality, consistency, and availability of childcare and preschool services in communities, Kidogo can give young children the best start to life while providing working mothers peace of mind that allows them to find and keep gainful employment and ultimately transform the overall trajectory of the family,” APHRC explains in its Kidogo model evaluation report.
Under its unique social franchising model, Kidogo identifies, trains, and supports female entrepreneurs, dubbed “Mamapreneurs,” to start or grow their childcare micro-businesses in their local communities.
Future Outlook
The studies above provide recommendations for the success and sustainability of affordable, quality childcare in Africa.
To begin with, it emerged that policies and implementation guidelines are needed to support women in successfully combining work and childcare.
They also said more training and sensitization of male caregivers are needed to increase their participation in unpaid care work and lessen women’s burden.
Community-based childcare models should be scaled or replicated to enhance sustainability and community ownership. Community ownership will provide strong mechanisms to improve the region’s access to and quality of childcare centers.
Strong linkages between self-help groups (SHGs) behind childcare start-ups, such as Kidogo and EDC, and concerned stakeholders must be established. These can be strengthened through capacity building, financial inclusion, and integrating their activities with relevant government development initiatives.
