Child Poverty in Mozambique. A Situation and Trend ... - Unicef

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This analysis of childhood poverty provides a comprehensive review of the
socioeconomic situation of the ten million children in Mozambique and presents
an overview of the public policy and service delivery environment for children. The
report is intended to serve as an up-to-date and comprehensive reference for all
stakeholders involved in the fight against childhood poverty, highlighting the many
varied and interrelated challenges faced both by Mozambican children and by
stakeholders seeking to address those challenges. This in turn is intended to support
the development and implementation of policies which help to reduce childhood
poverty and strategies to reach the most vulnerable and marginalised children. This
exercise is particularly important, as poverty during childhood can undermine an
individual’s development for life.
The conceptual framework
Chapter One outlines the conceptual framework of the report, which is informed by
a human rights based approach to childhood poverty. It acknowledges that children
experience poverty differently from adults, that the impact of poverty in childhood can
be lifelong and inter-generational and that children living in poverty face deprivations
of many of their rights: to survive, develop, participate, and be protected. The key
international legal instrument on children’s rights is the Convention on the Rights
of the Child (CRC), to which Mozambique is a signatory. The CRC affirms children’s
fundamental rights – such as the right to education – and childhood poverty can
therefore be defined as the deprivation of these basic rights. In order to operationalise
this rights-based approach to childhood poverty, the report adopts a deprivationsbased
approach which uses a series of indicators – known as the ‘Bristol Indicators’
– to measure children’s access to seven rights (nutrition, water, sanitation, healthcare,
shelter, education and information). This is presented in conjunction with the standard
consumption-based measure of poverty, and the two are regarded as complementary
to one another.
The human rights based approach implies the inclusion of two key steps in the
analysis: a causality analysis, looking beyond the immediate causes of non-realisation
of child rights to identify the underlying causes of the problem; and a capacity gap
analysis, exploring the capacity of all those individuals or institutions responsible for
respecting, protecting and fulfilling children’s rights. The deprivations-based approach
provides a basis for causality analysis by establishing a clear link between childhood
poverty and the provision of basic public services. In addition, through highlighting
areas with widespread deprivations in basic services, the deprivations-based approach
helps to identify key capacity gaps. In such cases, there is a need to examine
the capacities of all those institutions and individuals responsible for respecting,
protecting and fulfilling child rights.
The national development context
By the signing of the peace accords in 1992, after sixteen years of armed struggle,
Mozambique was one of the poorest countries in the world. As a result, even
though subsequent social and economic development has been rapid and sustained,
many children’s rights remain unrealised at present. However, this does not mean
that a rights based approach cannot be applied in Mozambique. In such contexts,
the progressive realisation of children’s rights is of fundamental importance – i.e.
achieving sustained improvements in child development outcomes to the maximum
of the available resources. As the analysis shows, the development trend has
CHILDHOOD POVERTY IN MOZAMBIQUE: A SITUATION AND TRENDS ANALYSIS
17