Political geography

The South African Child Gauge is published annually by the Children’s Institute, University of Cape, to monitor government and civil society’s progress towards realising children’s rights. This issue focuses on children and inequality.

Please access the book and all accompanying materials (a policy brief, poster, child-friendly summary and ordering form)  at http://www.ci.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=997&Itemid=399

The South African Child Gauge is divided into three parts:

PART ONE: Children and law reform

Up to half a million African babies die on the day they are born, and every year 1.16 million babies die in the first month of life while another one million babies are stillborn. In addition, about 250 000 women die of pregnancy-related causes every year in Africa. The majority of these deaths are preventable. However due to factors such as critical shortage of health professionals and essential materials and infrastructure, ineffective intervention programmes as well as the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, the Africa continent continues to lose millions of babies and mothers every year. Hence, there is a need to strengthen the health systems in many African countries through effective maternal and child health (MCH) intervention programmes.

A major new health workers index by Save the Children has ranked the best and worst countries for a child to fall sick in — with Chad and Somalia at the bottom and Switzerland and Finland at the top.

The index measures not only how many health workers there are, but also their reach and impact.

It shows that children living in the bottom 20 countries — which fall below the WHO minimum threshold of just over two health workers for every thousand people – are five times more likely to die than those further up the index.