Boosting the Impact of Nepal’s Child Grant through a Parenting Intervention

Abstract

This paper provides the results gathered over two years of Save the Children’s parenting programme developed for the Government Child Grant in Nepal. The paper draws on global evidence pointing to the vital role of parenting practices for children’s development and explains the essence of the programme used with parents in Nepal. Selected findings from impact studies carried out in 2018 and 2019 are used to show the positive changes found in parents’ behaviour with their children after participating in the sessions. It is argued that instead of merely seeing the Child Grant as a means to nutritional improvements it should be used as a pathway to advance development in all domains of early childhood – physical, cognitive, social and emotional – so that children get a good start in life. The parenting programme implemented by Save the Children as a ‘cash plus’ approach for the Child Grant holds great promise to support the ability of children to develop to their full potential.