End-Line Evaluation Brief: Childhood Development Activity in Tigray, Oromia, Amhara, Somali and Afar Regions of Ethiopia (2026)

Ethiopia’s recurrent crises, including conflict, drought, displacement, and economic shocks, continue to undermine young children’s opportunities for learning, development, and school readiness. Many children, particularly those living in crisis-affected and underserved communities, face limited access to quality early childhood education, stimulating learning environments, trained educators, learning materials, and supportive home environments. In response, Save the Children, with funding from the LEGO Foundation, implemented the Childhood Development Activity between 2022 and 2026 across the Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, and Tigray regions. The project aimed to improve access to quality, inclusive, play-based, and crisis-sensitive early childhood development and education services while strengthening caregivers, educators, schools, and community systems.

The end-line evaluation assessed the project’s performance in improving children’s learning, school readiness, and holistic development. Using a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design, the evaluation compared outcomes among 931 children from project-supported and comparison schools and included surveys with caregivers and teachers, classroom observations, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. Standardized tools, including the MELQO and MELE frameworks, were used to assess child development outcomes and learning environments.

The evaluation found that the CDA made a substantial contribution to children’s learning and development across all assessed domains. Compared with children in non-supported schools, children attending CDA-supported schools demonstrated significantly stronger outcomes in literacy, numeracy, executive functioning, fine motor development, and socio-emotional development. The largest gains were observed in socio-emotional development, where children scored nearly 20 percentage points higher than their peers in comparison schools. Numeracy and literacy outcomes also improved considerably, reflecting enhanced school readiness and foundational learning competencies.

The project’s integrated approach contributed to these results through improved learning environments, strengthened teacher capacity, increased caregiver engagement, school feeding services, and the promotion of play-based learning. Eighty percent of supported schools had access to play and learning materials compared to only 20% of comparison schools, while disability-accessible classrooms were more than four times as common in project-supported schools. Teachers demonstrated stronger application of child-centred and play-based pedagogies, and caregivers reported increased engagement in home-based learning activities such as storytelling, counting, drawing, singing, and play. Together, these interventions created more stimulating and supportive environments for children’s learning and development.

The findings demonstrate that integrated early childhood development programming can effectively improve learning, wellbeing, and school readiness in fragile and crisis-affected contexts. The evaluation highlights the value of combining quality early learning, school feeding, caregiver engagement, teacher support, and inclusive education within a single intervention model. However, persistent challenges related to literacy development, WASH services, disability inclusion, access to children’s books, and the sustainability of resource-intensive interventions underscore the need for continued investment and stronger government ownership. Overall, the CDA provides strong evidence for a scalable and effective model for advancing early childhood development and education among vulnerable populations in Ethiopia.