Rising rates of urbanization in Latin America, the growing participation of women in the labour force, distance from extended families who can help with childrearing, and the high percentages of female-headed households have increased the demand for non relative childcare by working mothers. With higher poverty rates among households headed by women, providing affordable and reliable childcare is crucial to women’s paid work, particularly in the formal sector where returns and benefits are higher. In 1991, the Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP) was established in Guatemala City as a government sponsored pilot program to alleviate poverty by providing working parents with low-cost, high-quality childcare. This report presents the operational evaluation of the effectiveness of the program’s implementation, the quality of its services, and the perceived satisfaction of implementers and beneficiaries, including their suggestions for program improvements. The main conclusion highlights the value of such programs in providing high quality, affordable childcare, while enabling poor working parents, especially single mothers, to pursue stable urban employment.

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