Analysing Child Poverty and Deprivation in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper analyses multidimensional child deprivation across thirty countries in sub-Saharan Africa, applying the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) methodology that measures various aspects of child poverty. The methodology has been adapted to the particular needs of this cross-country comparative study, standardising the indicators and thresholds to allow comparability across countries. Child poverty is defined as non-fulfilment of children’s rights to survival, development, protection and participation, anchored in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. DHS and MICS household survey data is used, taking the child as unit of analysis and applying a life-cycle approach when selecting dimensions and indicators to capture the different deprivations children experience at different stages of their life. The main objective of the paper is to present a direct method of child poverty measurement analysing deprivations experienced by the child. The paper goes beyond mere deprivation rates and identifies the depth of child poverty by analysing the extent to which the different deprivations are experienced simultaneously. The analysis is done across thirty countries in sub-Saharan Africa that together represent 78% of the region’s total population. The findings show that 67% of all the children in the thirty countries suffer from two to five deprivations crucial to their survival and development, corresponding to 247 million out of a total of 368 million children below the age of 18 living in these thirty countries. For the other 15 countries of sub-Saharan Africa where the CC-MODA analysis could not be carried out, predictions of child deprivation rates have been made using GDP per capita, urban population share, and population size. Based on the actual as well as the predicted multidimensional deprivation rates, just under 300 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are multidimensionally poor, being deprived in two to five dimensions crucial for their survival and development. The findings are also compared with other existing poverty measures, showing that for the countries included in the analysis, monetary poverty measures (both the international $1.25 a day and national poverty measures) are weak predictors of multidimensional child poverty. The study finds stronger correlation between multidimensional child deprivation and GDP per capita. The paper underlines that monetary poverty and multidimensional deprivation are conceptually different, complementary poverty measures and that there are advantages in measuring both simultaneously, especially when measuring child poverty.