Child wellbeing in Africa: the true wealth of nations.

摘要

The logic is simple: investing in children is an investment in tomorrow's peace, stability, security, democracy, and sustainable development. And nowhere in the world is the case for investment in children as clear-cut and powerful as it is in Africa-a continent so often seen as synonymous with conflict, instability, and poverty. But although governments are never short of good words to say about advancing children'swellbeing, how committed are they in practice? This is the fundamental question posed by The African Child Policy Forum in The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2011: Budgeting for Children.The report's authors took national budgets to be indicative of the true extent to which governments are prepared to match speeches with tangible action.To assess how far national budgets went toward addressing the needs of children, the authors analysed budget spending on health, education, early childhood development, and social protection in 52 African countries up to 2008.