The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), a longitudinal investigation of a diverse sample of 1,700 fifth graders and 1,117 of their parents, tests developmental contextual ideas linking PYD, youth contributions, and participation in community youth development (YD) programs, representing a key ecological asset. Using data from Wave 1 of the study, structural equation modeling procedures provided evidence for five first-order latent factors representing the "Five Cs" of PYD (competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring), and for their convergence on a second-order, PYD latent construct. A theoretical construct, youth "contribution," was also created and examined. Both PYD and YD program participation independently related to contribution. The importance of longitudinal analyses for extending the present results is discussed. 2The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a longitudinal investigation that seeks to identify the individual and ecological bases of healthy, positive development among diverse adolescents. Framed by an instance of developmental systems theory, developmental contextualism (Lerner, 2002(Lerner, , 2004, the 4-H Study is designed to follow youth across the second decade of life and to examine their developmental trajectories. This article describes the theoretical and methodological components of the study, and reports some key findings derived from the first wave of data collection (which occurred in 2002-2003).While we present the theoretical and empirical literature that legitimates the structural model and the design of the study, and in turn provide details about all features of the measurement model, we do not present analyses pertinent to all research questions, particularly since key facets of this model are optimally tested with change-sensitive data that will be available only through subsequent, longitudinal waves of the study. Instead, we present findings pertinent to the presence and structure of the several characteristics presently focused on in the literature as composing PYD (i.e., the Five "C"s of competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring) (e.g., Eccles & Gootman, 2002). We also propose a theoretical measure of youth contribution appropriate for early adolescents and examine unitemporal patterns of covariation with the 5Cs.Simply, before we could test with longitudinal data our developmental contextual conception of the process through which PYD occurs, we needed to establish that the concept of PYD as it had been discussed in the literature had empirical reality, both in its purposed structure and its covariation with other key individual and ecological variables 2 . Accordingly, we address the question of whether in the present data set there is evidence for the theoretical expectations that PYD is positively related to contribution and negatively related to adolescent risk and 3 problem behaviors and, as well, whether there is an association between PYD and youth participation in community-based, youth development (Y...

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Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs are seen as a promising way to prevent development delays and foster early development. While there is a growing evidence base on the effects of ECD programs in the United States, Latin America and elsewhere, there is little evidence of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of such programs in the African context. In this report we present initial results of the first randomized evaluation of a pre-school intervention in a rural African setting, analyzing the effects of a center-based community-driven preschool model implemented by Save the Children in rural areas of the Gaza Province in Mozambique. We find that, after 2 years since the start of the program in 2008, the intervention improved a number of important dimensions of child development, including cognitive, fine motor and socio-emotional skills (though not language), leading to higher levels of school readiness and significantly increasing primary school enrollment at the appropriate age. The program also produced positive impacts on the school enrollment of older siblings and increased the labor supply of primary caregivers. Taken together, these results suggest that low-cost community based preschool interventions such as this one show potential for positively affecting the lives of children and their families in rural African contexts in an affordable and effective way.

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.