Bad governance and corruption mean several African countries won't meet targets on cutting child mortality under the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, aid group Save the Children says in a new report.
The aid agency says more than 2.8 million children's lives could have been saved in Africa over the last ten years if countries had focused on the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population.
In sub-Saharan Africa, around one in seven children dies before their fifth birthday. Child mortality rates have fallen by just 21 percent since 1990 - far short of the 67 percent target set for 2015 under the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.
Countries like Kenya, Cameroon and Chad, which are making slow or no progress, are characterised by weak public expenditure management, says Save the Children in its report called a Fair Chance to Life.
Although some African countries have increased their healthcare budgets, a lack of transparency and absence of proper accountability mechanisms have fuelled corruption with particularly damaging consequences for poor children who depend on public health services, it says.
"In some of these countries the systems are not there to track the expenditure and determine that it has reached those it was intended for," said Aboubacry Tall, Save the Children's regional director for West and Central Africa.
Continue reading bad governance stops Africa cutting child mortality
Comments