$11 Million for a Middle Eastern Sesame Street in Iraq

Ahlan Simsim: Arabic Sesame Street for Children Displaced by ISIS.

USAID funded “Ahlan Simsim” — an Arabic-language adaptation of Sesame Street produced in Iraq by the Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the original program — at a cost of $11 million. The program was designed to provide early childhood education and psychosocial support for the estimated 3.4 million Iraqi children who had been displaced by ISIS’s territorial control between 2014 and 2017, many of whom had lost years of schooling during the conflict.

Sesame Workshop has a documented track record in conflict-zone early education — it has operated similar programs in Jordan for Syrian refugee children, in Bangladesh for Rohingya refugee children, and across several other displacement contexts. A 2021 Lancet study on the Jordan program found measurable gains in early literacy and numeracy among participating children. The Iraq program applied similar models to a post-ISIS displacement context.

Sesame Street Has More Outcome Data Than Most USAID Programs.

Sesame Workshop programs in conflict and displacement settings have been evaluated more rigorously than most USAID education programs. The 2021 Lancet evaluation of the Jordan program showed statistically significant improvements in early literacy, numeracy, executive function, and social-emotional development among children who participated. The evidence base for media-delivered early childhood education in low-connectivity conflict zones is stronger than for many in-person programs, which face attendance, teacher quality, and security challenges that a televised program avoids.

The Iraq program was funded after these Jordan results were published. USAID’s decision to fund it was based on evidence, not on cultural programming enthusiasm. Whether the U.S. should fund this kind of program for Iraqi children is a policy choice. Whether it is evidence-free spending — the implication of DOGE’s framing — is not supported by the record.