Poverty

Poverty is the underlying cause of child deaths in South Africa, according to a recent study released by the Medical Research Council. But other sub-Saharan African countries, with less money and fewer resources, have managed to cut their child mortality rates. A recent study in The Lancet reported that deaths in children under age five have been dropping in Tanzania, where between 2000 and 2004 child mortality dropped by 24 percent. During this period, the Tanzanian government increased the annual amount spent on healthcare per citizen from 4.70 to 11.70 (about R36 to R89,60). The money was also evenly distributed across the country, rather than favouring richer districts.

The European Union is failing to prioritise health and education in its plans for spending aid in poor countries, according to a new study, which also found that the EU appears to be using development aid to promote Western political and commercial interests, rather than to alleviate hardship. Alliance2015, a coalition of anti-poverty networks, contends that the EUs lack of focus on health and education will put the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in jeopardy.

The Southern African Regional Poverty Network(SARPN) and the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa will be hosting a two day southern Africa regional workshop at the Sunnyside Park Hotel, Johannesburg , South Africa.

Developing countries have made strides in providing access to clean water and schooling, but efforts to achieve other internationally agreed targets to combat extreme poverty and a host other global ills are falling behind schedule, according to a United Nations report released today.

Dakar - Significant progress has been made in sub-Saharan Africa toward the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Bank said in the third annual edition of its world MDGs follow-up report presented on Wednesday in Dakar.

The death of a child is always tragic, and in South Africa it is not an unusual occurrence. Every hour, 10 children under five years of age die. Almost one in 10 children will not survive to see their fifth birthday. The majority of these deaths are entirely avoidable.

Poor nutrition contributes to the deaths of some 5.6 million children every year and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children's Fund said Tuesday.

It has long been known that malnutrition undermines economic growth and perpetuates poverty. Yet the international community and most governments in developing countries have failed to tackle malnutrition over the past decades, even though well-tested approaches for doing so exist. The consequences of this failure to act are now evident in the world's inadequate progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and toward poverty reduction more generally.

Development projects designed to improve maternal and child welfare in Africa may incur unexpected costs associated with increases in family size if they do not include a component of family planning, according to new research from the University of Bristol.