The African Report on Child Wellbeing (ARCW) series
The African Report on Child Wellbeing (ARCW) series is one of the flagship products of African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) that aims at promoting state accountability to children. ACPF has launched five editions of this biennial series since 2008. The report is well received by policymakers and practitioners in both government and non-government sectors in Africa and beyond and extensively covered by African and international media. It is a powerful advocacy tools and reference material on issues relating to children in Africa.
Currently, ACPF is finalising the 6th edition – The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2020: How friendly are African governments towards girls?. This unique and pioneering report does three things. First, it provides a comprehensive and continental review and analysis on the state of girls in Africa. Second, it assesses the performance of African governments in fulfilling their obligations to girls using a robust statistical framework – The Girl-Friendliness Index (GFI). Third, it relays the voices of girls sought through targeted multi-country qualitative studies carried out in selected countries across Africa.
2018
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The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2018: Progress in the child-friendliness of African governments, the fifth in the series, brought to the forefront the fact that Africa is sitting on a demographic time bomb. It made the case that the rapidly increasing children and youth population is both a challenge and an opportunity for Africa. It urged African governments to go beyond the conventional box-ticking approach to child rights and commit to radical and transformative actions through massively investing in children and youth. Failure to do so, the Report warned, would exacerbate the burden of poverty and inequality and pose serious threat to peace, security and prosperity of the continent. |
2016
The fourth edition, The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2016 - Getting It Right: Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice, building on the various studies of ACPF and other child-focused organisations, came up with an important theme – Implementation of children’s rights in Africa. It examined challenges hindering effectiveness of implementation efforts based on in-depth country case studies carried out in five countries and extensive review of documents from treaty body monitoring work. It was launched in Dakar, Senegal, by H.E. Mahammed A. Dionne, Prime Minister and Head of Government of the Republic of Senegal.
2013
The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2013: Towards greater accountability to Africa’s children, the third in the series, took stock of progress in government accountability in the five year between 2008 and 2013 and compared progress, both individual country and collective regional changes and provided analyses on why some countries have remained consistently child-friendly, and others consistently less so.
2011
In view of the critical role of public budgets in the realisation of children’s rights, the second edition of the African Report on Child Wellbeing series - The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2011: Budgeting for Children - focused on the budgetary commitment of African governments to children. The Report made ground-breaking comparisons between the rhetoric and the actual commitment of governments to children as reflected through their expenditures on sectors benefiting children. It was launched in 2010 in Addis Ababa.
2008
As the first edition of the African Report on Child Wellbeing series, The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2008: How child-friendly are African governments? introduced the concept of child-friendliness of governments, provided the framework for assessing the accountability of governments to children and set a benchmark against which future changes could be evaluated. It was launched in 2008 in Nairobi and enjoyed wide international media coverage.
