Effectiveness Initiative (EI)

The EI effort is grounded in the in-depth study of 10 specific ECCD programmes. It is designed to be a cross-site, cross-agency collaboration and exchange that stimulates ongoing dialogue, as well as an effort to test the application of qualitative research methods to the field. The goals of this effort are two-fold: to gain deeper insights into what makes ECCD programmes effective, and to activate international dialogue on effectiveness.

The Effectiveness Initiative Virtual Community website is at the centre of this effort. This portal includes descriptions of various EI programmes, documents, and links. For example, the EI process is detailed. The narrative reads: "Rather than evaluating projects by measurement of objectives, investigating effectiveness avoided seeking answers from pre-defined tools or procedures. Each programme involved in EI had a minimum ten year track record and were given the following basic guidelines:

• A team works on site with each project that directs and undertakes the investigations, and does the internal analysis of both the processes used in the investigations, and the outcomes. This team is made up partly of peole [sic] from within the project, and partly of outsiders.
• Each project and its site team determine what will be investigated.
• Each project and its site team determine how investigations are carried out. They draw partly on a body of tools and processes identified or developed for the EI, and partly adapt or invent their own tools and processes.
• Each project and its site team discuss, analyse and document both the processes and the outcomes of the investigations.
• Everything is shared, analysed and discussed with all the other participating projects and site teams.

Lessons are learned across sites that have implications for ECD programming and policy development which are identified as cross-site issues....Each of the ten participating sites were asked to use and create tools to contribute to the development of qualitative methodology in measuring effectiveness of ECD programmes. The BvLF recognises that much more is documented of lessons learned from programme experience rather than "how" those lessons are actually learnt. As a result of this recognition, the diverse perspectives spanning the ten participating programmes have culminated towards a rich source of qualitative tools in order to determine effectiveness in ECD."

The implementation of the EI has continued across the 10 sites and the dissemination process has begun. The first major collective activity was a workshop in Portugal, which was an opportunity for all the site teams to share ideas and experiences on qualitative tools and methods for data gathering and analysis.

Early Childhood Development.

Organisers say, "We believe that bringing the use of qualitative tools into the world of ECD, for gathering and processing data, will give a better understanding of what we see and hear and distil from the process: it is the first time for many. We know that in quantitative research it is considered crucial to begin with a fixed/prescribed set of methods and procedures that are to be used with conformity across all study sites. However, in this effort, we are consciously working without a normative blueprint in the hopes that we will be able to identify patterns and individual differences in the case studies that would not appear if we started with a fixed constellation of assumptions. By taking this approach we get both information and process."