Government Ministers for Children

July 15, 2008 by ourtimes

I wanted to find out if children’s rights and protection are better or worse in Africa than other parts of the world. I discovered that Africa has more government ministers whose specific role is to ensure the well-being of children than the rest of the world combined. Further down the page I’ve included charts listing the countries and their ministers (go directly to the charts). A question I have not tried to address within the scope of this article is the extent to which their activities are making a real difference to the lives of children.

In addition to government initiatives, children’s well-being is the focus of a large number of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and charities. The map below shows the number of such organizations, globally, which belong to the Child Rights Information Network (www.crin.org). Regional and local offices of international organizations are counted separately, and are not incorporated as part of a single entity in the totals.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children (persons under the age of 18). It was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in November 1989 and came into force on September 2, 1990.

The Convention is given legal force in a member nation when, as a signatory, the country ratifies the legislation. Alternatively, a country can accede without the preliminary stage of signing. Up to now, two countries — the United States of America and Somalia — have done neither. Somalia made a commitment to the United Nations to ratify the CRC as soon as political stability is restored. The USA made no commitment.

• The government of South Africa promotes children’s rights in accordance with the CRC through a National Programme of Action: www.children.gov.za.

• Ghana was the first country to ratify the CRC. You can read about the work of Ghana’s Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs here: www.mowacghana.net.

A selection of demographics for Africa

Of the countries in Africa which have government ministers for children’s affairs, two have the highest birth rates in the world (Mali and Niger), and in Zambia life expectancy at birth is worse than all but two countries in the world — Angola (37.92 years) and Swaziland (31.99 years). Children in many parts of Africa suffer deprivations as a consequence of overpopulation and a lack of funding for public services. The data and world rankings shown in the table below are estimates for 2008 which come from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (link 1 / link 2). Tunisia and Mauritius are exceptions to the general picture. The fertility rate is defined as the average number of children born per woman.

Country	Fertility Rate	Rank	Life Expectancy	Rank
Benin	4.96	32	53.85	190
Cameroon	4.41	45	53.30	193
Congo, Democratic Republic of the	6.28	9	53.98	187
Ghana	3.78	55	59.49	180
Guinea	3.71	56	49.80	202
Kenya	4.70	39	56.64	184
Malawi	5.67	17	43.45	213
Mali	7.34	1	49.94	200
Mauritania	5.69	15	53.91	189
Mauritius	1.83	153	73.75	94
Namibia	2.81	84	49.89	201
Niger	7.29	2	44.28	210
Tanzania	4.62	42	51.45	197
Togo	4.85	35	58.28	181
Tunisia	1.73	167	75.56	74
Zambia	5.23	26	38.59	221