main caregivers, before reporting results on health center utilization. While children’s illnesses could be interpreted as a final outcome, we report it along with other intermediary outcomes in the health domain because health center utilization is measured conditionally on reported illnesses.

S _timulation practices (Intermediary outcome domain #3)_ . The BCC component encouraged psycho-social stimulation through language and play. We build two indices based on items capturing the family care environment in MICS surveys. The first index captures the frequency at which children have interactions with adults through activities such as reading, storytelling, going out together, playing, naming, counting or drawing. The second index captures the number of types of toys children play with, including homemade toys, manufactured toys, household objects, animals, toys that can be pulled, and balls.

_Child protection practices (Intermediary outcome domain #4)_ . The BCC component promoted positive disciplining to manage conflict and avoid harsh punishments. It also encouraged birth registration. We first build an index aggregating positive disciplining behavior (explain or redirect) minus negative disciplining behavior (forbid, shake, yell, spank, spank with an object, berate, slap, hit on the hands, and hit with an object). Second, we measure whether children have a birth certificate.

Ultimately, we are interested in testing whether the promotion of behavioral changes in parenting practices contribute to improve human capital outcomes among young children. We consider final (or downstream) outcomes in three domains: anthropometrics, cognitive development and socio-emotional development. We again measure indices for each set of outcomes.<sup>24</sup> _Anthropometrics (Final outcome domain #1)_ . We measure height-for-age (used to identify stunting), weight-for-height (used to identify wasting) and weight-for-age (used to identify underweight) z scores for all children aged 6-59 at the time of the follow-up survey.<sup>25</sup> _Cognitive development (Final outcome domain #2)_ . We implement a cognitive test adapted by Zeitlin and Barry (2008) to measure cognitive development among young children in West Africa. The test is a version of the Bayley<sup>TM</sup> cognitive scale adapted to West Africa.<sup>26</sup> The baseline survey was the first time that such

> 24 The indices are standardized for the control group. Since the distribution of anthropometric measures have long tails, we trim the top and bottom 2% to rule out outlier effects. We perform robustness checks for alternative treatment of outliers in the annex.

> 25 We present heterogeneity analysis by age in Section 6.3.

> 26 The cognitive scale consists of 91 items ordered by increasing difficulty. <mark>The test begins at a standard (“basal”) test item determined by the child’s age. In case the child does not pass the first three test items administered, the examiner goes back up to the next previous basal item (which is also the starting point for a younger age group) and continues going back until the child passes three consecutive basal items. The examiner then continues with the following items. The test is stopped when the child fails to pass five items in a row.</mark> The total raw score for an individual child is constructed as the sum of the items passed. The raw

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