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UNICEF South Africa Country Programme and
Advocacy processes
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Introductory Remarks

• Achievements of Social Development sector
• Promulgation of Childrens Act no 38 of 2005
• More than 7 million CSG recipients
• Establishment of SASSA
• The challenges to deal with Poverty, AIDS and
  Crime
• Importance of Parliaments oversight role
• UNICEFs commitment to provide ongoing support and
  intention to have a full time presence at
  Parliament

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SA economy is booming, wellbeing indicators are
not
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Source MDG Report for South Africa, Stats SA
Gross Domestic Product (P0441) Mid-Year
Population Estimates 2005
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Programme Structure 2002-2006

• Basic Social Services
• HIV and AIDS
• Social Policy and Local Governance
• Communication, External Relations, and
  Partnerships

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ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN
Health Nutrition
Education Adolescent Development
Child Protection
Advocacy Strategic Leveraging
Advocacy for Childrens Rights
Protection against violence
Child Survival
Basic Education
Social Protection / Safety Nets
Adolescent development
Nutrition
Leveraging Funds
Early Childhood Development
Monitoring for Impact
Programme Communication
Planning, Monitoring Evaluation
External Relations
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Child Survival and Nutrition
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Morbidity and Mortality Profile of Children in
South Africa

• 60 of all children are ill or are dying from
  preventable causes namely
• diarrhoeal disease (10-15),
• respiratory infections (7),
• low birth weight (6) and
• protein energy malnutrition (5 to 10).

• 40 of all illnesses and death are attributable
  to HIV and AIDS.

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Our response to address this

• Accelerated implementation of community IMCI,
• Support health workers to identify and provide
  care for vulnerable neonates and support family
  care of these children post-discharge.
• Early detection of growth faltering at community
  level
• Implementation and scaling up of the Basic
  Antenatal Care Package,

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Impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa

• Approximately 5,7 million people infected
• 3.3 million women and 104,863 babies infected
• 29,5 infection rate among women visiting
  antenatal clinics
• Greatest killer of under 5 children AIDS (40)
• Almost 300,000 babies born to HIV mothers a year
• Between 55,000 and 82,000 children in need of
  ARV, only 5,000 receiving ARV

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5 Key Strategies

• Early diagnosis and testing of infants
• Streamlining health systems to maximise staff
  capacity to treat HIV infants
• Scaling up PMTCT to prevent children from
  contracting HIV
• Targeted infant care
• Supporting Safety Net Systems for Orphans and
  Vulnerable Children (OVCs)

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Early diagnosis testing

• Few newborn older babies are being tested
  resulting in poor early diagnosis.
• Laboratory tests during first 12-18 months of
  life are expensive, involve complex technology.
• Plans for 2006
• Increase the number of infants tested for HIV
  from 30,000 to at least 120,000.

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Expanding access to ARVs for children

• ART accredited treatment sites in all 53 health
  districts of South Africa, relatively few of
  these provide care for infants and children
• Theoretical and practical training insufficient
• Human resource constraints
• Plans for 2006
• Double number of children receiving ARVs from
  8,500 to 17,000

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Child protection
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Care and support for OVC

• Deaths in 20-45 age group tripled in 10 years
• 1.8 million children lost a parent to AIDS,
  millions more are living in households in which
  one or more person is ill, dying or deceased.
• Child support grant up to age 14 anticipated to
  reach 11 million South Africans
• Key results in 2005
• National Plan of Action for OVC 2006 2008
• Development of database for OVC -research
• Training manuals developed to create safety nets
  and child care forums for OVC
• ECD sites piloted as nodes of care and support
  for village workers supporting OVC in Nkandla.

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Care and support for OVC

• We have to ensure that OVC have access to
• Education
• Health services
• Social Grants
• Care and support

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National Policies legislation
Provincial Budget allocations and services
Municipalities Plans and programmes for Children
Communities Child Care Forums
Families Training and Care
Children orphaned and vulnerable
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Plans for 2006

• Support implementation of National Action Plan
• Complete establishment of OVC database
• Complete pilot study of ECD sites as nodes of
  care and support
• Scaling up of child care forums and safety
  networks
• Develop and finalise national primary caregiver
  training programme

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Violence against women and children

• Latest SAPS Crime Statistics 2004/2005
• More than 360,000 women and children murdered,
  raped, assaulted, sexually molested or abused
• 40 of 55,114 rapes were against children
• 47.7 (4,829) of all indecent assault cases were
  children.
• 31,607 children victims of common assault
• 24,189 children victims of assault to commit
  grievous bodily harm
• Most rapes still go unreported

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Plans for 2006

• Drafting legal discussion paper on trafficking in
  preparation for draft bill
• Costing of National Policy Framework and Strategy
  for the Prevention and Management of Child Abuse
  and Neglect and use it to advocate for resource
  allocation
• Study on violence against children under 12 years
• Situation analysis of children living in streets,
  in residential care, without rights and
  trafficked children.
• Develop community-based systems to report and
  monitor child protection abuses
• Roll out child protection models in 3
  municipalities
• Train 3,000 health workers, social workers
  police on prevention management of child abuse
• Scale up services through Thuthuzela Care Centres

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Education and Adolescent Development
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Situation of children

• Primary net enrolment ratio (7 13 years)
  increased from 88 in 1996 to 96 in 2004
• Fundamental challenge provision of quality
  education
• 1 million children out of school
• School retention only 65 reach Grade 5
• Only 16 (Birth to 5 years) have access to
  formal ECD
• Violence and insecurity major concern

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Early Childhood Development

• Key results for 2005
• Support GoSA in development of operations plan
  for implementing Integrated Plan on ECD
• Technical advise on development of paper for
  operationalisation of Plan to create 15,300 ECD
  learnerships
• Planned for 2006
• Development finalisation of national primary
  caregiver training programme for babies young
  children
• Development of models of care for children under
  5 and their caregivers
• Development of ECD centres as nodes of care and
  support for OVC

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A Child-friendly school

• safe and protective environment for children
• healthy spaces to learn and grow
• access to clean water sanitation
• gender sensitive
• strong links to the surrounding communities, and
• outreach services for orphans and other
  vulnerable children.

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A Child-friendly school

• Provision of quality education for all children
  means
• Quality School buildings, structures and
  equipment
• Quality Teachers and teaching practices
• Quality Management and governance practices
• Supporting the establishment of an independent
  national ME unit

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Adolescent Development

• Key results 2005
• Capacity development on youth leadership
  continued for youth, educators, school governing
  bodies, traditional leaders community members
• Fatherhood project and reduction of gender-based
  violence
• 80 Educators in Eastern Cape KZN trained on
  creative facilitation participation for
  lifeskills education
• Planned for 2006
• Strengthening implementation evaluation of
  lifeskills programmes for adolescents national
  provincial

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Social Policy and Local Governance
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Situation of children

• More than 11 million children live in poverty
  yet annually in some departments millions are
  returned unspent
• Comprehensive policies legislation weak
  implementation management result in poor
  service delivery
• SPLG aims to strengthen Governments ability to
  plan, budget and put systems in place to provide
  more equitable, effective and efficient services,
  with focus on the most vulnerable children and
  women.

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Social Policy and Local Governance

• Key results 2005
• Technical support in finalising Childrens Bill
  and National Child Abuse Strategy
• Technical support in finalising Support 2 local
  municipalities to develop and implement Local
  Plans of Action for Children (LPA)
• On line birth registration project taken over by
  GovSA rolled out to 68 hospitals
• Conceptual framework developed for Stats SA for
  stronger monitoring systems for birth
  registration.

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THE CHALLENGE TO PARLIAMENT IN ADVOCACY
AND ACTION FOR CHILDREN
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Advocacy and action

• Liaising with the Justice Portfolio Committee to
  fast-track the finalization of the Child Justice
  Bill and Sexual Offences Bill
• Oversee allocations for services to children and
  related spending patterns
• A national system of identifying and tracking
  orphans and vulnerable children at local,
  district and provincial levels
• Advocate for the increased of access of children,
  particularly 3 and 4 year-olds, to formal ECD by
  targeting for example the EPWP sources
• Extending the child support grant to children
  aged 14-18 years

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Advocacy and action
Review Social Assistance Act
Finalise Sexual Offences Bill
Finalise Child Justice Bill
Finalise Childrens Amendment Bill
Advocacy for Children in Parliament
Advocacy Document to support the oversight
responsibilities of parliamentarians
Analyzing State of Nation and Budget Speeches to
advocate for children
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Plans for 2007

• Plan to establish office in Cape Town by January
  2007
• Want to be of support to SD Portfolio Committee
  Members will have to indicate areas where support
  is required
• Resource leveraging study to analyse use of
  government funds for children at national,
  provincial local levels - recommendations for
  annual budget prioritisation and planning

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Thank you