120 local NGOs formed part of a network, working to tackle Africa’s nurturing care deficit by calling on leaders at the UN Summit of the Future to make a real difference.
South Africa (02 October 2024) – The UN Summit of the Future held in September 2024 in New York aimed to secure concrete promises and action plans by Heads of State to fulfil existing commitments to achieve sustainable development and bridge the Nurturing Care Deficit.
Child rights organisations across South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa united to sound the alarm: our children are being left behind, and with them, the future of the continent.
In a bold submission to the organisers of the Summit, a network of over 120 NGOs, including the Families for Children Consortium, the South Africa Parent Programme Implementers Network (SAPPIN), the South African National Child Rights Coalition (SANCRC), Give a Child a Family Africa, Save the Children South Africa and Breadline Africa, laid bare the urgent need to place children’s rights at the heart of global development agendas.
Their collective voice were clear: without comprehensive, universal parenting support to enable nurturing care, Africa’s development goals will remain out of reach. Countries across the region and in South Africa recognise this and have made clear policy commitments to universalise support to parents to enable their provision of nurturing care. These promises must be fulfilled by ensuring parents are supported from conception until the age of three through a health system that is geared towards improved development and not just survival, followed by structured quality early care and learning programmes from pre-school to matriculation.
Startling reality:
- Globally, just 17% of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are on track. In Africa, only 6% of the 32 measurable SDGs targets are on track to be achieved by 2030. The rest? They’re either stalled or regressing.
- In 2023, 185 million plus children under 5 in SSA – set to grow to 200 million by 2030 – By 2050, Africa will be home to 1 billion children.
- Of equal concern is that less than half of children under the age of 5 years do not develop their full potential, and the numbers are at risk of increasing as the child population grows.
The submission underscores a chilling reality: the failure to realise the potential of Africa’s children is a root cause of the continent’s slow progress toward the SDGs. And this failure stems from a widening deficit in nurturing care, exacerbated by growing social, economic, and political adversities.
The youth dividend at risk:
“Africa’s greatest asset is its youth,” the submission asserts, yet this asset remains underutilised. The so-called “youth dividend,” the potential economic growth to be realised from a growing youth population, will remain a pipe dream if countries do not fulfil their commitments to provide comprehensive support for parents and caregivers.
“We are at a crossroads,” says Patricia Martin-Wiesner, coordinator of the submission process and founder of Advocacy Aid. “If we continue to neglect the early years, particularly the first three years of life, we are not only failing our children but jeopardising the future of the entire continent.”
A call for urgent action:
The network’s submission called on the UN Summit of the Future to prioritise and invest in integrated parenting support programmes to remedy the nurturing care deficit. It demanded that the Pact for the Future, be endorsed by Member States in New York in September 2024, explicitly committed to universalising comprehensive parental support from conception until children exit childhood at the age of 18 years.
“We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past,” the submission warns. “The Pact must not only emphasise certain services at certain stages of life but ensure that comprehensive, sustained support is provided across the entire course of a child’s development.”
The network’s message is clear: the time for action is now. If we fail to invest in our children today, we will pay the price tomorrow.
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