UNICEF

National health insurance in Asia and Africa

Published by: 
UNICEF

There is widespread consensus that providing universal, sustainable, affordable and quality health services underpins efforts to achieve equitable health outcomes. UNICEF in 2010-2011 conducted a two-phase landscape analysis, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, to investigate how health insurance and other social health protection mechanisms contribute to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). The work built on previous research examining the protection from impoverishment that health insurance provides to vulnerable groups, the potential for increasing and expanding insurance coverage, and the options for and constraints limiting the use of insurance to attain UHC. 

The State of the World’s Children 2012

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UNICEF

More than half of the world’s 7 billion people now live in urban areas. What does this mean for children? UNICEF has dedicated the 2012 edition of its flagship report, The State of the World’s Children, to the situation of children growing up in urban settings. Cities are known to generate economic growth – but, as the report reveals, not all children are benefiting from urban expansion. In this increasingly urban world, the absence of a sustained focus on child rights means that some children are being left behind.

Progress in Child Well-being - Building on what works

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UNICEF

Children around the world are doing better than ever, according to a new report from UNICEF and Save the Children UK. Compared to just a few decades ago, fewer young children are dying each day, fewer children are living in poverty and more children are well-fed and in school.
The good news for decision makers is that there seems to be a path to extending these gains: Evidence suggests that they have resulted from strong, explicit national commitments to invest in children, supportive policies, and greater and well-targeted development assistance. Going forward, efforts will have the greatest impact if focused on the most disadvantaged, where childhood deprivation is increasingly concentrated.

Levels & Trends in Child Mortality Report 2011

Published by: 
UNICEF

The number of children under five years of age dying each year declined from more than 12 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said after releasing the latest estimates on worldwide child mortality.

These new figures show that compared to 1990, around 12,000 more children’s lives are saved each day. 

The annual report on child mortality found that in sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest number of under-five deaths in the world, the speed at which the under-five mortality rate is declining doubled from 1.2 per cent a year during 1990-2000 to 2.4 per cent a year during 2000-2010.

Child Health in South Africa

Series Name: 
HST Update
Published by: 
Health Systems Trust
The care and protection of children is a practice and ethic rooted deep in the wisdom and culture of all societies, wrote James P Grant, the previous executive director of UNICEF. He was referring to a deep and universalbut often neglectedknowledge that children are vulnerable. Their situation is closely linked to poverty, and more closely related to social inequality than to general economic hardship. Under apartheid, South African children were exposed to gross human rights violations such as detention and shooting. But the less dramatic, more pervasive, violations of apartheidsuch as racial exclusion from most of the land and the economy, and discrimination in health care and educationultimately did more harm. These softer violations have left todays children with an historical disadvantage as a result of social inequity, underdevelopment and poverty. About 61% of South African children live in poverty and, since families with large numbers of children are more likely to be poor, a disproportionate number live in poor households. Children's rights raise important questions for all those concerned with the health of children. These range from the macro-economic issues to interactions with individual patients.