While Sri Lanka’s child survival ratio has increased to a satisfactory level than ever before, it has been reported that many of them suffer from the ill effects of under- nutrition. To overcome the negative influence on cognitive and psycho-social development of children due to the above situation, the Government of Sri Lanka through the Ministry of Health Care & Nutrition, and UNICEF initiated the inter-graded Early Childhood Care and Development Programme implemented between 2002 and 2006 covering 161 MOH areas. IPS was entrusted with evaluating the progress and sustainability of the programme in selected 12 MOH areas with the attention focused on:

• Relevance and appropriateness of the early childhood programme to the circumstances of Sri Lankan children
• Extent to which the strategies and approaches adopted by the early childhood programme are appropriate for promoting holistic development of children – in particular addressing the problem of malnutrition as well as cognitive and psycho-social development
• Extent to which care givers and service providers are satisfied with the programme and how the programme managers perceive the programme
• Extent to which measurable results have been achieved in terms of outputs, outcomes and impact
• Extent to which activities and results are sustainable at their respective level