Togo, UNICEF Forge New Front in Early Childhood Development
….Tessi, UNICEF chief champion integrated Dagbékéva model as digital birth registration, community childcare gain traction
Togo is moving to place early childhood development at the centre of its national development strategy as the government and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deepen collaboration around an integrated community-based model designed to give children a stronger start in life.
The initiative, known as Dagbékéva, brings together maternal and child healthcare, immunisation, nutrition, early stimulation, birth registration and community childcare in a single intervention targeted at families at the grassroots.
The renewed push received a major boost on Sunday when the Minister of Health, Jean-Marie Koffi Ewonoule Tessi, accompanied by UNICEF Representative in Togo, Dr Erina Dia, undertook a field assessment of the programme in communities in the Vo district.
The visit offered a window into an emerging approach to early childhood development in which healthcare, social protection, technology and community participation are treated as interconnected rather than separate policy concerns.
At Akoumapé, the delegation inspected a community childcare facility designed to provide a safe environment for young children while their mothers pursue farming and other income-generating activities.
The intervention addresses one of the less visible challenges confronting rural families: the tension between childcare responsibilities and the economic survival of households.
For many women, particularly in rural communities, the absence of affordable and accessible childcare can restrict their ability to work, farm or participate fully in community economic activities. By placing childcare within the community, Dagbékéva seeks to address both the welfare of children and the economic realities of their parents.
The initiative also places considerable emphasis on technology.
At Vo Koutimé, officials examined the “Naissance Kéva” digital application, an innovation designed to facilitate birth registration and assist parents in keeping track of critical child-health interventions, including vaccination appointments.
The digital component could prove particularly important in strengthening the link between civil registration and healthcare.
A birth certificate is more than an administrative document. It provides a child’s legal identity and can be crucial for accessing education, healthcare, social protection and other public services. Connecting birth registration with routine health interventions therefore offers the potential to reach families through services they already use.
Beyond vaccination
At the heart of Dagbékéva is an understanding that the wellbeing of a child cannot be reduced to whether the child receives vaccines or treatment when sick.
Nutrition, stimulation, protection, documentation, parental support and access to quality healthcare all contribute to a child’s development, particularly during the first years of life.
The programme consequently seeks to deliver these interventions as a coordinated package.
This integrated approach is significant for Africa, where governments and development agencies frequently confront limited resources, difficult-to-reach communities and overlapping social challenges.
Rather than creating separate structures for each intervention, the Dagbékéva model seeks to use existing community and health systems to deliver several services around the same child and family.
During the visit, UNICEF also supported the communities with equipment and child-focused kits and contributed to the inauguration of a district pharmaceutical depot aimed at strengthening the availability of essential medicines.
The intervention reinforces another critical component of effective primary healthcare: ensuring that services are supported by the medicines, equipment and supplies required to make them functional.
Tessi seeks expansion
Minister Tessi used the field visit to advocate stronger mobilisation of partners to consolidate the achievements recorded at Akoumapé, particularly the community childcare initiative.
He also stressed the need for the experience gained through Dagbékéva to be transferred to other communities.
A key element of that strategy is the development of “trainers of trainers” who can pass knowledge and implementation skills to additional teams.
Such an approach could enable the model to expand without relying entirely on a centralised system, allowing trained local actors to become agents of replication and sustainability.
The minister’s position signals an ambition to take Dagbékéva beyond a pilot intervention and potentially make its lessons useful to a wider national programme.
A model with wider African relevance
The Togo-UNICEF partnership also carries significance beyond the communities visited.
Across Africa, governments continue to confront challenges involving incomplete birth registration, child malnutrition, inadequate access to early childhood services, insufficient vaccination coverage and limited support for working parents.
The Dagbékéva experience suggests that some of these challenges can be tackled simultaneously when interventions are designed around the needs of the child rather than around individual government departments or development programmes.
Its combination of digital technology, community childcare, health services, nutrition, early stimulation and civil registration offers a potentially replicable framework for countries seeking to strengthen early childhood development without creating entirely new institutional structures.
For UNICEF and the Togolese government, the central objective remains straightforward but far-reaching: ensuring that children receive the support they need during the formative years that shape their future health, education and productivity.
The success of the model, however, will ultimately depend on sustained financing, community ownership, quality control and the government’s ability to take successful interventions to scale.
For now, the developments in Vo point to a broader shift in thinking — from treating childhood interventions as isolated programmes to recognising early childhood development as a foundation of national development itself.
And as Togo seeks to expand Dagbékéva, the partnership with UNICEF could provide a test case for how African countries can combine community action, public health and digital innovation to give millions of children a better beginning in life.
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