Child Poverty in Africa: An Overview

Theme:
  • Child Poverty
theme
133
Pages: 116
Year of Publication: 2009
Country: Africa
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Africa had an encouraging economic outlook in recent years and efforts are being made to contain the impacts of armed conflicts and HIV/AIDS. Yet, the continent has a long way to go in ensuring the wellbeing of its children. Still, millions of children struggle on the margins of survival in the continent. Children account for a large percentage of the income-poor worldwide and the severely deprived. It is much more so in developing countries including Africa. At least 600 million children under the age of 18 are surviving on less than US$1 a day worldwide; 40 per cent of these children live in developing countries.

Child poverty is worsened by the increasing impoverishment of households. In 2005, 43 per cent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa lived below US$ 1 a day. Three quarters of the world’s ultra poor (122 million) live in sub-Saharan Africa.

There is also a rise in inequality in many countries in the continent with national wealth accumulation having very little effect in lifting the majority of the people out of poverty. Inequalities are not only high between regions and between countries but also within countries between rural and urban areas. For instance, children born in rural sub-Saharan Africa face nearly twice as much risk of being severely deprived and have more than three times the risk of being multiply severely deprive

Language: English
Published by: African Child Policy Forum (ACPF)
Author: Shimelis Tsegaye
Located in: Publications
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Founder Assefa Bequele, PhD

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