In 2023, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution launched the Childhood Cost Calculator (C3), a publicly available tool for making costing and cost analysis of programs focused on children and youth more accessible to policymakers, implementers and researchers across the globe. Following the pilot application of the tool in three countries and launch of the tool, a database called the Cost Data Explorer was created to house the cost data collected and analyzed using the calculator. These resources were developed as part of the Brookings Childhood Cost Data initiative which strives to generate quality, comparable cost data on programs seeking to improve cognitive, psychosocial, nutritional, and health outcomes of all children and young people.
With this goal in mind, CUE is working collaboratively with local entities to support the effective collection and analysis of cost data using C3 through “costing labs” so that implementing partners and governments are better able to make data-driven decisions. In addition to bolstering local capacity and increasing the amount of quality cost data in each lab context, the costing labs illuminate potential challenges and areas for improvement of the C3 tool and allow CUE to conduct action research to uncover the on-the-ground demand-side constraints to more and better costing. Further, by expanding the use of C3, the labs contribute to the global database of consistent high-quality cost data for young children and youth to increase the volume and effectiveness of financing of ECD and education.
Throughout 2024, CUE co-led a costing lab with the Colombian social enterprise aeioTU. This lab consisted of a number of workshops led by CUE in which the team at aeioTU strengthened their knowledge and understanding of costing and cost analysis. Specifically, the team selected a program about which to conduct a costing exercise, conducted a mapping exercise to identify key stakeholders relevant to the project and relevant to costing, identified and refined their key costing goals and questions, participated in a training on the use of C3, and conducted cost entry and analysis. This report shares the experience of the costing lab and the data that resulted from the cost calculations.
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