Global public health has improved vastly over the past 25 years, and especially in the survival of infants and young children. However, many children, particularly in Africa, continue to live in poverty and in unhealthy, unsupportive environments, and will not be able to meet their developmental potential. In other words, they will survive but not thrive. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) stress sustainable development, not just survival and disease reduction, and the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health proposes a Survive (end preventable deaths), Thrive (ensure health and wellbeing) and Transform (expand enabling environments) agenda. For children to thrive they must make good developmental progress from birth until the end of adolescence.

Addressing the social determinants of developmental problems, this volume offers a broad, contextualised understanding of the factors that impact on children and adolescents in Africa. Unlike other works on the subject, it is Africa-wide in its scope, with case studies in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. Covering mental health as well as physical and social development, it looks at policies and practice, culture and priorities for research, identifying challenges and proposing solutions.

Contents:

• Ushering in the sustainable development goals 

• New directions for the science of child development in the African.

• Mental health policy in Africa: gaps, needs and priorities for children and adolescents. 

• Cross-cutting issues for child development in Africa. 

• Maternal depression and child development in sub-Saharan Africa. 

• Child development and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. 

• Birth to twenty plus: early health and development from a longitudinal perspective.

• Culture and attachment in Africa.

• Planning and evaluating child mental health interventions in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Creation of culturally appropriate developmental assessment tools for rural Africa.

• Psychological developments and their correlates in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Early childhood development interventions: a focus on responsive caregiving.

• Resilience in children and adolescents.

• The impact of epilepsy on behaviour and cognition in African children.

• Conclusion: child and adolescent development in Africa: future research.

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Worldwide child and youth poverty remain the biggest barrier to achieving a better life in adulthood. Progress in lifting children out of poverty in the last decades has been slow and limited in the developing world, while the recent global economic crisis has exacerbated child poverty, youth unemployment, and social exclusion in many developed countries. 

This book critically examines the long-term consequences of growing up poor, the close linkages between deprivation and human rights violations in childhood and adolescence, and their effects on labor market entry and future career in a number of developing and developed countries. Drawing on multiple disciplinary perspectives, it makes a forceful case for the eradication of child poverty to take center stage in the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Contents page:

INTRODUCTION 

  PART I: CHILD AND YOUTH POVERTY, RIGHTS AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

• •   A Review of Child Poverty Approaches: The European Experience.

  •   Child Poverty and Intergenerational Poverty Transmission in The EU: What is the impact of social protection policies and institutions?

  •   Child Poverty, Child Rights in Small Island Developing States (SIDS): The case of the Caribbean.

  PART II: YOUTH (UN)EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION: TRENDS AND POLICY ISSUES

•   Unpacking the NEETs of Latin America and the Caribbean: Methodological challenges and surprising results.

•   "Biological Dualism": Youth employment and poverty patterns in Spain.

•   Youth in the Greek Labor Market.

•   Social Enterprises, Social and Solidarity Economy, and Youth: What is the role for policy-making?

•   "Generation Nowhere": The youth in South Africa's informal economy - the case of day laborers and waste pickers.

•   "Independent, Yet Not Grown Up": Young migrant workers' journeys in post-Mao China.

  CONCLUSION 

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While there has been substantial progress in reducing global poverty in recent years, hundreds of millions of vulnerable children remain trapped in extreme poverty. This is especially the case on the African continent, where children account for the majority and growing proportion of the population. Despite rapid economic growth in several African countries, as well as significant achievements in both development and humanitarian interventions, a staggering number of African children remain vulnerable to extreme levels of deprivation.

Existing challenges notwithstanding, a number of social policies and programmes proved successful in alleviating the burden of child poverty and deprivation. In addition to being vitally important in promoting and protecting children’s rights, these social policies and programmes embody the international community’s commitment to achieve the Social Development Goals (SDGs) and ensuring no one is left behind.

What Works for Africa’s Poorest Children? From Measurement to Action identifies the social policies and programmes that are most effective in supporting Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable children, and examines the key features underpinning their documented success. It provides cutting edge examples on how we can identify child poverty and deprivation, analyses innovative ultra-poor child sensitive programmes, and provides new public financing and governance rights suggestions for child poverty elimination. 

Contents page:

• 1. Introduction                  

• 2. Multidimensional child poverty and the SDGs: From measurement to action        

• 3. Women’s Empowerment and Impact on Child Nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa                   

• 4. Driving factors of educational enrolment and attendance: Impact of the 2012 conflict       

• 5. Delving deeper into child poverty and its drivers in sub-Saharan African: A multidimensional approach for Nigeria

• 6. Achieving child-centred SDGs in Ethiopia: The potential of inter-sectoral synergies       

• 7. Weather shocks and children’s growth deprivations: Understanding and mitigating the impact       

• 8. Child-sensitive non-contributory social protection in North Africa              

• 9. Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme and adolescent wellbeing: Evidence from Gender and Adolescence Global Evidence (GAGE)            

• 10. Social protection for livelihood sustainability in Ghana: Does LEAP cash transfer eradicate extreme poverty?         

• 11. Child-sensitive protection programme on hunger and malnutrition in under-five year children in Nigeria                

• 12. Can cash transfers transform child wellbeing in fragile contexts? Evidence from Liberia’s Bomi cash transfer pilot

• 13. Rethinking public finance for children: Monitoring for results. Evidence from Uganda      

• 14. Children, disabilities and poverty: Enforcing the human right to inclusive education in sub-Saharan Africa              

• 15. Ensuring children’s social protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A case Study of combatting child labour in the Copper-Cobalt Belt

• 16. The life of Ba’Aka children and their rights: Between the processes of poverty and deprivation 

Reviews:

• ‘While the world agrees on the priority of achieving the SDGs, there is much too little known on the practicalities of how to do so, especially in challenging situations. This immensely valuable and rich collection is grounded in perspectives and experiences in a range of African countries. By exploring what has worked for children and what has not in education, nutrition and health, it is an invaluable guide to policies to improve children’s lives and help them realize their potential.’
     -- Professor Frances Stewart, Development Economics, University of Oxford
   

• ‘Recent advances in the analysis of poverty highlight its complex and multidimensional nature. This insightful book applies innovative thinking and cutting-edge methodologies to the challenge of understanding and tackling child poverty in Africa. Contributions from countries across the continent shed fresh light on the precarious situation of African children, on violations of their rights, and on new approaches to addressing their unmet needs. This book is both sobering and uplifting. The contributors show us what needs to be done, but also what can be done, and how to do it.’
    -- Stephen Devereux, Co-Director, Centre for Social Protection, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Brighton, UK
   

• ‘Lawson's thirty years of experience and dedication in understanding and providing appropriate policy advice for extreme poverty and vulnerability in SSA, result in yet another enlightening volume of what works for Africa's poorest.’
    -- Susanna Gable, Chief Economist, SIDA
   

• ‘Reducing child poverty requires a broad variety of policies, based on a thorough analysis of the origins and causes of many different situations. Protection of children, addressing violations of their rights, meeting their basic needs and carving paths towards sustainable living conditions in a caring society demand multidisciplinary and comprehensive policies. General approaches which do not take into consideration the specific circumstances of children in different countries and regions and their different religious, cultural or ethnic backgrounds will not be effective. Family backgrounds matter. So do power relations within communities as well as different rural and urban living experiences. In this book wisdom gained in different African countries has been brought together. The volume combines new thinking with lessons learned in different fields, such as nutrition, health, sanitation and education. It is a must read, both for students of poverty and development and as well as for politicians, policy makers, experts and field practitioners.’
    -- Jan Pronk, former Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation

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This book sheds light on a range of complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship. Adult education has been increasingly recognized as a means to engage and re-engage young adults and facilitate their life chances and social inclusion thus contributing to an active citizenship within their societal contexts. This collection of chapters dealing with issues of social inclusion of young people represents the first book to explicitly approach the complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship from the European perspective.

Social exclusion, disengagement and disaffection of young adults have been among the most significant concerns faced by EU member states over the last decade. It has been increasingly recognised by a range of stakeholders that there is a growing number of young people suffering from the various effects of the unstable social, economic and political situations affecting Europe and its neighbouring countries. Young adults who experience different degrees of vulnerability are especially at risk of being excluded and marginalised. Engaging young adults through adult education has been strongly related to addressing the specific needs and requirements that would facilitate their participation in social, economic and civic/political life in their country contexts. Fostering the active citizenship of young people, both directly and indirectly, is an area where many AE programmes overlap, and this has become a core approach to integration.

This book considers social, economic and political dimensions of active citizenship, encompassing the development of social competences and social capital, civic and political participation and the skills related to the economy and labour market. The cross-national consideration of the notions of vulnerability, inclusion and active citizenship underpins the complexity of translating these concepts into the national contexts of adult education programmes.

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What exactly is civic and political participation? What factors influence young people’s participation? How can we encourage youth to participate actively in their own democracies? Youth Civic and Political Engagement takes a multidisciplinary approach to answering these key questions, incorporating research in the fields of psychology, sociology, political science and education to explore the issues affecting youth civic and political engagement. 

Drawing on evidence that has been obtained in many different national contexts, and through multinational studies, this book provides a theoretical synthesis of this large and diverse body of research, using an integrative multi-level ecological model of youth engagement to do so. It identifies unresolved issues in the field and offers numerous suggestions for future research. 

Youth Civic and Political Engagement is an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, youth workers, civil society activists, policymakers and politicians who wish to acquire an up-to-date understanding of the factors and processes that influence young people’s civic and political engagement, and how to promote youth engagement. 

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