Children Survival in West Africa

Inequalities in child survival persist across regions of the world with West Africa being largely hit as it has most Least Developed Countries with the prevalence of high household poverty, high level of inequalities which often affect children within the households. Child survival across households is often challenged with poor maternal health, household structure, environmental factors, and poor health. Although slight improvements have been recorded in the health sector across Africa yet West Africans lag behind in combating child mortality and tend to be far away from achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. West Africa is home to 16 countries out of which 11 are among the Least Developed Countries and Land Locked countries. It serves as the region that has seen a high level of displacement, civil conflicts, and climatic shocks which has raised household poverty leading to the prevalence of hunger, marginalized and vulnerable children thereby undermining child survival.

Data on Child mortality child estimates from World Bank indicates that in 2018, child mortality in Benin stood at Sierra, Leone, Togo. Factors militating against the reduction of mortality can be linked to African traditional lifestyle - which since inception, has been dictated and influenced by the institutional and social norms dominants in culture and belief which promulgate high fertility rates and early marriage among women. In terms of environmental factors, the use of solid fuel such as wood and charcoal for cooking leads to household air pollution which raises the risks of child mortality. Issues of poor sanitation, the prevalence of anemia among pregnant women, The proportion of children suffering severely from three main forms of malnutrition (stunting, wasting and underweight) in the region remains high, thus creating an avenue for the high rate of child mortality which remains high in West African countries.

This paper explores the determinants of child survival in West Africa with focus on Benin, Sierra Leone, and Togo, by exploring the roles played by mothers education, age of girl child in marriage, age at first birth, motherhood practices, household cooking fuel types, access to water, availability of health facilities which gives rise to the use of traditional midwifery system, hunger and malnutrition have effects on the health of lactating mothers and the survival of their children. Questions raised include: How can the resistant traditional system be synthesized into the promotion of maternal health and child development? could education help enlighten women on the effect of high fertility on child health? What needs to be done to help female reproductive rights?

Method of Analysis: This paper uses both quantitative and qualitative data of National Demographic and Health Survey from 3 Least Developed Countries namely; Benin, Sierra Leone and Togo (being countries with young population), which are most recent and largest available sample data designed to provide information for monitoring the population and health situation. The data is sourced from a cross-sectional study with information on nationally selected samples which serves as a representative of a nation in both rural and urban zones. The paper explores the Child Recode Data records of the selected countries which contained relevant information such as individual’s demographic and social characteristics, information on children's health and portrays a fair share of the national scope based on regional selections. Data analysis was done using logistic regression with the dependent variable determined by the child is alive.

Result: Findings reveal that age of mothers at first marriage and first birth, religion, marital status of women, household headship, types of the water source, cooking fuel type, access to electricity, literacy rate of mothers, access to health facilities have a significant effect on child survival in the selected countries. Living in poor households and rural areas was also associated with the risk to child survival with a high number of women giving birth through prolonging labour delivered outside the hospital and without the assistance of health workers or health facilities. Research findings also indicate that children's survival is significantly related to motherhood, household living pattern and mothers’ level of education.

Conclusion and Recommendation: The paper identifies that positive impacts could be made towards reducing child mortality if political will is cultivated and backed up by allocation of the requisite resources by the government on efforts on tackling diseases which are direct result of pneumonia, malaria malnutrition and hunger, providing hygienically built-environment and focus attention on the issues of teenage pregnancy. Mothers’ health must also be considered through reduction of teenage pregnancy, an improvement on motherhood practices and the education of women must be encouraged at all level and the nature and policies of work need to be gender-sensitive to accommodate the demands of a family for workers and also improve their involvement at various managerial positions.