Cape Town - Worrying data reveals that mortality rates for children under the age of 5 years old are increasing.
This was among one of the stark findings in the South African Child Gauge 2024, an annual publication by the Children’s Institute at UCT.
The 17th edition of the Child Gauge, in partnership with Unicef South Africa; the DSI-NRF Centre for Excellence in Human Development, University of the Witwatersrand; the Standard Bank Tutuwa Community Foundation and The LEGO Foundation, was released last Wednesday.
First published in 2005, the Child Gauge is an annual publication that aims to track progress towards the realisation of children’s rights in South Africa.
The Child Gauge 2024 emphasises the need to enhance early childhood development, and reflect on the progress since the adoption of the National Integrated Early Childhood Development Policy in 2015, and setting an agenda for 2030.
Co-editor of the South African Child Gauge 2024 and Communications and Education Specialist at the Children’s Institute at UCT, Lori Lake, said that each year a team of researchers interrogate the latest evidence and how best to use this to guide policy and practice so services and support for children and their families can be improved.
“So from the very beginning of the process we are already encouraging researchers to consider not only the problems facing South Africa’s children but also the solutions.”
This year’s edition of the Child Gauge carries worrying statistics, with some of the key findings being: one in every 25 children dies before their 5th birthday; 71% of children live below the upper-bound poverty line in households that do not have sufficient income to meet their basic needs; over 1 in every 4 children under 5 are stunted – a sign of chronic malnutrition that compromises physical growth and brain development; and less than half of 4-5-year-olds attending early learning programmes are developmentally on track.
Lake said preliminary findings from the MRC’s Rapid Mortality Surveillance Survey suggest the under-5 mortality rate in South Africa has been increasing, with an estimated 40 deaths per 1 000 live births in 2022. This equated to 1 in 25 young people dying before their fifth birthday.
“This emerging trend is deeply worrying as it comes at a time when child poverty is increasing – and at a time of increasing austerity and budget cuts which are likely to further compromise young children’s access to healthcare services. South Africa’s child mortality rates are much higher than other middle income countries such as Brazil (8 deaths) and China (7), and it is now highly unlikely that we will meet the SDG target of 25 deaths per 1 000 live births by 2030,” Lake said.
The key drivers of under-5 mortality are what are referred to as “diseases of poverty”– diarrhoea, malnutrition and lower respiratory tract infections, Lake added.
Lake said the proportion of young children living in poverty increased from 64% to 71% in 2022.
“That means that 7 in every 10 children are living in households with a per capita income of less than R1 558 per month. So this again is deeply worrying, especially as we have seen a decrease in uptake of the Child Support Grant over the same period.
“So families with young children are under increasing strain, as the majority of families don't have sufficient income to meet children's basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, electricity and transport.”
Poverty also compromised children’s access to healthcare, adequate nutrition, and early learning programmes, likely to intensify stress and conflict within the family.
“And this is why we are calling on the government to intensify investment in the health and welfare of pregnant women and young children - as we need to build a stronger healthier foundation for national development,” Lake said.
One of the many interventions coming out of the Child Gauge called for the long-awaited establishment of a National Food and Nutrition Security Council.
“The NFNS Policy makes provision for the establishment of an NFSN Council to provide high level political leadership as we need to mobilise both government, business and civil society to address rising food insecurity in South Africa but the establishment of this Council is long overdue.”
It is also important to ensure that the Council has a strong representation from the children’s sector, to ensure that children’s nutritional needs are given due priority.
In the foreword, professor Mark Tomlinson of the Institute for Life Course Health Research at the Department of Global Health at Stellenbosch University, said the Covid-19 pandemic and associated aftershocks resulted in a substantial growth in global poverty, increasing poverty by 10% affecting over 100 million more children.