Research 

Learning Brief 2, May 

'Ilifa Labantwana is a national initiative aimed at promoting Early Childhood Development in South Africa. Among other things, it seeks to design and test integrated and affordable models of ECD which could be taken to scale, thus ensuring that all children in South Africa have access to the services they need to realise their full potential. In 2008, Ilifa commissioned five non-profit organisations working in ECD in different settings in four provinces to test various models of community-based ECD. This resulted in a four-year programme known as the Sobambisana (‘Togetherness’) Initiative. The interventions were intensively monitored and evaluated. The results have been recorded in a series of reports, and summarised in five Learning Briefs. This, the first Learning Brief, summarises the general findings of the Sobambisana evaluation, general lessons learnt from the Initiative, and its broader implications. The other four – Building Local Evidence, Group Learning Programmes, Home-Visiting for Households with Children not in Formal Education, and Group Programmes for Parenting Education – summarise the more specific findings about and lessons learnt from the various interventions under the Initiative.' [p. 2]