The Social Problems Of Children In Sub Saharan Africa

Today, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is creating millions of AIDS orphans who languish away in orphanages that lack the resources to take care of them. Millions of other children are living on the streets, trying to survive on their own, leaving them vulnerable to unscrupulous individuals who are exploiting them for the sex tourism business, or recruiting them into hazardous labor situations that injure or maim them. Other vulnerable children are abducted into the military as child soldiers and forced to commit horrific crimes that will haunt them forever. The educational system in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to decline as resources dwindle along with education expenditures, and governments spend more money on ammunition than books. As the AIDS epidemic spreads across the continent of Africa, the numbers of professionals such as doctors, nurses, and teachers are dwindling, leaving the educational and medical communities weakened. Meanwhile, the growth and development of Africa continues to stagnate. More and more failed social polices surface from the Western world such as forced austerity measures from the IMF and the World Bank, along with the Structural Adjustment Programs that hinder further growth and prosperity on the continent. The Social Problems of Children in Sub-Saharan Africa identifies and describes the numerous problems that children in Sub-Saharan Africa are facing today. The author has lived in Ghana, West Africa, and has used an ethnographic approach in order to better understand some of the most critical problems concerning children in the poorest region on earth: Sub-Saharan Africa.

This book employs sociohistorical, narrative, and discourse frameworks to discuss the sociopolitical complexities and ambiguities of educating marginalized groups in sub-Saharan Africa since western education was introduced in the region. It outlines the systemic and structural challenges faced by marginalized children in the education system that prevent them from fully participating in the education process. This book focuses on how the props underlying Christian missionary education, colonial education, and early postcolonial educational enterprise all served to marginalize certain groups, including women, some geographical regions and/or communities, such as Islamic communities and people with disabilities, from the colonial and postcolonial economic discourses. This historical background provides the springboard for discussions on the complexities and ambiguities of educating marginalized groups in some communities in sub-Saharan Africa in the contemporary times. This book also highlights the challenges of the recent policies of policy makers and the strategies and initiatives of civic societies, non-governmental organizations, and local communities to promote marginalized children’s participation in education. This book elucidates the varied ways certain groups and communities continue to interrogate the structural and systemic challenges that marginalize them educationally. It argues that the level of marginalized groups’ participation in education in sub-Saharan African in the 21st century will determine the progress the region will make in the Education for All (EFA) initiative and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Furthermore, it argues that increasing educational participation in marginalized communities requires implementation of educational programs that address marginalized groups’ structural social arrangements and socioeconomic contexts.

Reviews the World Bank's experience in industrial restructuring in 46 countries during the past 14 years. The study finds that for most completed public enterprise restructuring operations, sustainability of benefits was a large problem, mainly because of fragile sector reforms and inadequate governance and management. Those completed for the private sector experienced poor outcomes from inadequate attention to country economic conditions and policy distortions. To overcome such problems, the study recommends that future restructuring operations be designed and implemented to have an impact at the firm level.

Early childhood, from birth through school entry, was largely invisible worldwide as a policy concern for much of the twentieth century. Children, in the eyes of most countries, were 'appendages' of their parents or simply embedded in the larger family structure. The child did not emerge as a separate social entity until school age (typically six or seven). 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge: Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa' focuses on the 130 million children south of the Sahel in this 0-6 age group. This book, the first of its kind, presents a balanced collection of articles written by African and non-African authors ranging from field practitioners to academicians and from members of government organizations to those of nongovernmental and local organizations. 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge' compiles the latest data and viewpoints on the state of Sub-Saharan Africa's children. Topics covered include the rationale for investing in young children, policy trends in early childhood development (ECD), historical perspectives of ECD in Sub-Saharan Africa including indigenous approaches, new threats from HIV/AIDS, and the importance of fathers in children's lives. The book also addresses policy development and ECD implementation issues; presents the ECD programming experience in several countries, highlighting best practices and challenges; and evaluates the impact of ECD programs in a number of countries.

Social protection is an increasingly important part of the social policy dialogue in Africa, and yet because of its relatively new place in a rapidly evolving agenda, evidence on critical design choices such as targeting, and on impacts of social protection interventions, is mostly limited to case studies or small, unrepresentative surveys. This impressive collection makes a major contribution to building the evidence base, drawing on rigorous analysis of social protection programmes in several African countries, as well as original research and thinking on key topical issues in the social protection discourse. Social Protection for Africa’s Children is divided into four parts. The first presents economic and human-rights based right arguments for social protection as an integral part of the social policy menu in Africa. This is followed by a part on targeting, which highlights some of the key policy trade-offs faced when deciding between alternative target groups. The third part presents rigorous quantitative evidence on the impact of social cash transfers on children from programmes in South Africa, Malawi and Ethiopia and the final part addresses a set of issues related to social justice and human rights. This book significantly advances existing knowledge about social protection for children in Africa, both conceptually and empirically. It makes a strong case for social protection interventions that address the short term (amelioration) and long term (structural) needs of children, and shows that programming in this sector for children is both feasible and achievable. Policy makers and practitioners in this sector will have, in this book, the theoretical and empirical evidence necessary to advance social protection for Africa’s children in the decades to come. Furthermore, this book should be an essential resource to postgraduates and students focussing on development economics in Africa.

This text is written for individuals and organizations working to promote the rights of children in the justice system. It explores practical problems relating to youth justice reform, drawing on the work or government and non-government agencies in nine countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Although dwarfed by wider social and economic governance problems, youth crime is an area of social policy, dealing with growing numbers of children and young people who have been marginalized and displaced by conflict and rapid socio-economic change. Core themes include: child law reform; influencing practice within the formal justice system; urbanization and issues of justice; traditional systems; and conflict, war crimes and children. Whilst this book has been primarily written for policy-makers and students working in developing countries, many of the themes show an increasing convergence of problems between North and South: it should therefore be of interest to a wider international audience in both developed and developing countries.

Children on the Boundaries of Time and Space in sub-Saharan Africa has come at the time when children’s well-being is on the agendas of governments, policy makers, schools and community organisations. It provides an in-depth analysis of the relation between official children’s rights and well-being policies and their implementation refracted through African as well as Western lenses. The content of the book is a departure from conventional stereotype approach to children’s well-being analysis in sub-Saharan Africa. In addressing issues around children’s rights and well-being, the book offers a reflection on the conflict between adult society and government welfare policies. The book also draws on existing knowledge about national and international efforts to change adult attitudes towards children. Analysis in the book demonstrates that there are both structural and operational problems in children’s rights and policies governing their well-being in sub-Saharan Africa. This sort of work has been neglected since the last few decades and has created a gulf between government policy rhetoric and practice. Children on the Boundaries of Time and Space in sub-Saharan Africa bridges that gap and reasserts the need for effective policy, material changes in resources and cultural change valuable to enhance children’s ability to stay healthy, grow and learn to become responsible citizens.

Bass's comprehensive, systematic study examines the complex factors framing child labor in Africa and offers a window on the lives of the child workers themselves.