Early Childhood Care and Development for Floating IN CAMBODIA Villages Project Background Cambodia has recognized the paramount importance of education to its overall national development agenda. The National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2014-2018 emphasizes the education sector as key to strengthening the foundation of the nation’s human resources. The Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2014-18, developed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) and closely linked with the NSDP, focuses on two key areas: (1) inclusive and equitable quality education and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all, and (2) effective leadership and management of education staff at all levels. While Cambodia has made remarkable progress in expanding access to and improving the quality of its basic education, which is legally defined as education provided from grade 1 to 9, fundamental gaps remain in the early childhood education (ECE) sub-sector. In 2015, 77.1 percent of Cambodia’s three to four year-year olds did not have access to ECE, due to the lack of pre-school facilities. Children who lack access to ECE services, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, generally face lower school readniness, leading to lower academic achievement, increased probaility of dropout, and a decline in overall educational quality as a whole. Location: Villages along the Tonle Sap River With lessons learned from previous education projects, including the Early Childhood Care and and Tonle Sap Lake in Kampong Development (ECCD) project and Education for All Fast-Track Initiative project, the World Bank Chhnang and Pursat provinces. supports Early Childhood Care and Development for Floating Villages project to expand ECCD access to the children residing in floating villages. Financiers:  Japan Social Development Fund: US$3.00 million,  Administrated by the World Bank. Implementing Agencies:  Save the Children International Approval Date: June 10, 2016 Closing Date: About the Project June 10, 2019 The project development objective is to improve access to quality ECCD services through community and home-based programs for children 0 to 5 years old, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, in the targeted areas. This objective will be achieved through:  Component 1: Promoting access to ECCD services:  Providing low-cost Community-based (CB) and Home-based (HB) ECCD programs for children Contact: and parents. These including construction of 11 ECCD centers for CB programs, establishment of Beng Simeth 635 HB programs and creation of commune-based networking for supporting and managing ECCD services in the commune. CB programs provide center-based activities for children ages 3 World Bank Task Team Leader to 5, while HB programs are led by local “Core Mothers” to organize regular meetings with E-mail: sbeng@worldbank.org parents of children aged 0 to 5 to improve their nutrition, protection and care.  Component 2: Providing quality child-friendly ECCD programs:  Building capacity of facilitators of CB ECCD centers, as well as government officials, for improving CB ECCD services;  Conducting training sessions for Core Mothers group leader parents on child friendly HB ECCD program implementation;  Organizing a maternal literacy program for promoting ECCD activities, and www.worldbank.org  Conducting community seminars on health, nutrition and hygiene for poor families.  Component 3: Strengthening capacity of government and community structures: www.youtube.com/worldbank  Strengthening local structures and capacity of government, communities and NGOs to support ECCD program implementation;  Strengthening ECCD networking and coordination among all stakeholders;  Facilitation advocacy activities. www.twitter.com/worldbank Beneficiaries and Results The project’s main beneficiaries will include 10,070 children aged 0 to 5 years (5,035 girls) and www.facebook.com/worldbank 8,483 parents in the 137 targeted villages.