Opinion Editorial: The G20 Leaders’ Declaration Missed the Real Dividend: Africa’s Children
Why the G20 Must Put Children at the Heart of Development
Patricia Martin and Lene Øverland (Breadline Africa); Tatiana Kazim (the Equality Collective); Wilmi Dippenaar (South African Parenting Programme Implementers Network); Rachel Rozentals (Families4Children); Monica Woodhouse (South African National Child Rights Coalition)
Africa is on the cusp of a demographic transformation. By the end of the century, half the world’s children will call Africa home. This is not just a statistic. It is Africa’s greatest asset. Given current poor and unequal child outcomes, without timely investment in children’s development, their potential may become a liability.
Recognising this, the G20 processes engaged in dialogues on, inter alia, early child and adolescent development. However, the final Leaders’ Declaration sidelines child development. It prioritises GDP growth through trade and industry.
The Declaration should have positioned improved children’s development as an apex priority, with measurable targets supported by investment commitments.
An estimated 75% of children in lower and middle-income countries do not receive minimally adequate nurturing care to secure their development. In South Africa, only 42% of children in ECD Programmes meet developmental milestones, and 82% of unenrolled children do not. Nearly half of Grade 1 learners will drop out before matric. By adulthood, South Africa loses more than 60% of its human capital due to inadequate nurturing care, thus fuelling youth unemployment, exclusion, and inequality. This is reflected in South Africa’s high NEET rate of 37% – the rate of educational and economic exclusion of adolescents and youth.
The root cause: governments are failing to deliver population-scale support and services to enable parents to provide the nurturing care across the life course that children need to thrive.
Therefore, it was encouraging to see G20 deliberations on early childhood development and adolescent health and well-being. However, the Declaration does not follow through adequately and sidelines children’s development. Whilst it commits to reducing the NEET rate by 5 per cent, there is no comparable goal to improve child development. Without the latter, the former is unlikely to be realised. Compared to the multiple, detailed paragraphs dedicated to “Harness[ing] critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development”, children’s early development is dealt with rather vaguely towards the end of the declaration in only one paragraph.
South Africa must provide ongoing leadership to address this deficit. It must develop a comprehensive programme to enable parents to provide nurturing care across the life course, thereby measurably improving the early and later development of all children to unlock their potential.
We call on governments, donors and civil society to align behind this agenda and hold leaders accountable for measurable progress. If you are interested in advancing this work, please connect with:
Lene Øverland, Chief Operating Officer, Breadline Africa – operations@breadlineafrica.org
Patricia Martin, Director, Advocacy Aid – patricia@advocacyaid.com
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Africa is on the cusp of a demographic transformation.
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