Africa

This section provides an overview of the condition of young children in Africa, why is ECD needed in Africa, and ECD and HIV/AIDS. This Africa chapter also provides information on World Bank supported activities in Africa, including lending and non lending work. In addition, it offers a section on non-World Bank related ECD documents and activities in the region, especially as they related to policies and case studies.

Eight Countries Selected to Receive Analytical Support for Scaling Up ECCD

The World Bank Africa Region’s Human Development Department is pleased to announce the selection of eight countries that will receive support for country-level analytical work in 2009 through the Africa Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Initiative. Funded by the EFA Fast Track Initiative’s Education Program Development Fund (EPDF), the Africa ECCD Initiative will work with Ministries of Education and other partners, through a consultative process, to design and implement strong early childhood components within their education sector programs. This analytical work will help countries prepare to scale up cost-effective ECD interventions through the EFA Fast Track Initiative’s Catalytic Fund and other sources. The eight countries selected for 2009 are: Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania/Zanzibar. Regional capacity-building and knowledge-sharing activities that will engage a broader group of African countries will be announced in the near future. Brochure

Young children in Africa

Africa has the youngest population in the world. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa's 130 million children below six years of age (20% of its total population) are seriously at-risk. Families are devastated with the AIDS pandemic, which left 10.6 million orphans as of 1999 (UNAIDS 1999). Wars and civil conflict within states increased the number of African refugees to 35 million in 1999 (those internally displaced as well as those who fled their countries), 85% of whom are children and women. Infant mortality has declined to 105 per 1,000 live births in 1997, but is still the highest in the world. Of the African children who survive through age six, nearly 30-million (or one-third) are chronically malnourished, weighing only three-fourths of the weight standard for their age, largely due to inappropriate child feeding practices, high morbidity and poor child caring practices (ACC-SCN 1999). About 35% are stunted following persistent malnutrition before they reach the age of three; a situation that can hardly be reversed.                                                                         

Why ECD in Africa?

A large part of Africa's population is children, and while mortality rate is decreasing, the children are not thriving. Of those who survive through the first year of life, one-third are malnourished. A Uganda survey shows that every fourth household hosts a child to parents who dies of AIDS. Very young children (1 to 5 years) are increasingly left without proper attention and care, receive very little stimulation, and are left to fend for themselves even when sick.

There are many factors behind the status of the African family, including socio-economic conditions of war, poverty, over-crowding, inadequate food supply, disease and isolation. Specifically, the wearing away at traditional family structures is caused mainly by the increasing participation of women in the labor force, increasing demands on farms, urbanization, economic and conflict related migration, AIDS, and the increasing number of nuclear families with single-parents. As a result, an entire generation of 130 million children below 6 years are ill-prepared physically and mentally for school, and the basic rate of education in Africa is thereby deemed very inefficient.   

HIV/AIDS and young children in Africa

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is affecting children worldwide. At the end of 1999, the estimated number of all people living with HIV was estimated to be 33.6 million. Approximately 95 percent of HIV infected people live in the developing world - more than 20 million are estimated to live on the African continent.

AIDS is now the leading cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 1999, a total of 10.4 million children were estimated to be orphaned by it in the region alone. Children are made vulnerable by the disease as it severely challenges families and communities to meet basic needs. HIV/AIDS puts children's safety, health and survival increasingly at risk. To learn more about what the Bank is doing regarding young children affected by AIDS in Africa click here