Of the many changes that have taken place in Western society during the past two centuries, few have been more significant than the steep fall in infant and child mortality. However, the timing and causes of the decline are still poorly understood.
The 1990 World Summit for Children brought together 71 Heads of State and Government to discuss ways in which to improve the lives of the world's children. The international ‘Plan of Action’ adopted at the summit recognised the importance of grass roots initiatives at the local level.
This title focuses on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as it relates to children's basic economic and social rights in developing countries in terms of the obligations placed by the Convention on both States and the international community.
'Learning or Labouring' samples current thinking on the critical relationship between child work and basic education and should provide busy programme planners, project workers and students with both a practical working tool and an innovative source of information.
Educational rights for minority groups may be included in states' education systems and also enshrined intheir statutes. However, states' laws, their declarations and their educational systems are largely normative statements. For many minority groups, the key issue is whether educational practice actually recognises those legal obligations and aspirations and provides a full, effective and fulfiling education for their young people.
The economic crisis in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s and 1990s generated fierce debate among analysts and policy-makers concerning its causes and appropriate ways out of it. This volume addresses the key policy issues in structural adjustment in Africa.
The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the world's most widely ratified international human rights treaty. It thus provides an ideal context in which to examine the relationship between different cultural values and the interntional community's oft-stated aspiration to achieve universal human rights standards. This volume focuses upon a widely accepted family law principle according to which "the best interests of the child" shall be "a primary consideration...in all actions concerning children." Through a combination of broad theoretical analyses and country-specific case studies the distinguished contributors demonstrate that cultural values are inevitably a major factor in the interpretation and application of many human rights norms.
This study begins with an overview of the unique set of factors which paved the way towards Africa's economic, social and political crisis of unprecedented and paralysing proportions. A review of the programmes implemented - with little or no success - during the 1980s, mostly with International Moonetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank assistance, to lift Africa out of the stranglehold of poverty points to the urgent need for an alternative development strategy. The last part of this publication examines the components of such a strategy.