Zimbabwe was ranked on the bottom 10 of the 52 African countries in a report on Child Friendliness issued by the African Child Policy Forum according to the African Report Child Well Being Towards Greater Accountability to African Child on Monday.
The African Child Policy Forum is an independent African institution of policy research and dialogue on the African Child. It gives analysis and ranks the performance of 52 African governments in a Child Friendliness Index comparing progress since first rankings.
The Child Friendliness Index is based on 44 indicators that measure government’s commitment to the protection of their children, provision for their children’s basic needs and the participation of children in decisions that affect them.
A friendly government is defined as one which makes the maximum effort to meet its obligations to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights and ensure their well being.
Although there was an overall improvement towards child-friendliness, a large number of African governments performed weaker in 2013 than they did in 2008 due a variety of reasons.
The 10 most child-friendly countries in Africa according to the index are Mauritius, South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Lesotho, Algeria, Swaziland and Morocco.
The least 10 child-friendly governments are those of Zimbabwe, Chad, Eritrea, Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, Cameroon, DRC, Cote d’Ivore and Mauritania.
While there has been considerable progress in national budget commitments for children, there still significant gaps. Evidence indicated that African governments spent on average 11% of their budget on health according to their report.
The report was based on analyses on the ACPF’s Child Friendliness Index and Save the Children Child Development Index, UNICEF’s rankings based on under five mortality rate.
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