Evaluation of the UNICEF Child-Friendly Communities (CFC) approach 2018 - 2022: DRC, Liberia, and Guinea

UNICEF, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), designed and led the CFC approach in 2017 with a RTM component. This approach, which aims to address the overlapping multiple deprivations of children, uses community platforms as the primary entry point for the delivery of a multi-sectoral integrated package of prenatal, neonatal, and preventive and curative interventions to all children including health, nutrition, early childhood development (ECD), water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), protection, and Communication for Development (C4D) interventions to women, newborn, children and adolescents. The RTM component aimed at increasing the availability and use of intermediate result data together with client/community feedback to strengthen evidence-base of local decisions made by programme managers, front-line health workers, and community leaders.  

The initiative included three countries supported by a BMGF grant (Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea and Liberia) and two countries (Chad and Togo) supported by other resources. Across the five countries, the project was implemented in close to 10 districts and 1053 villages. Figure 1 displays where the CFC-RTM programme has been implemented in WCA.