We have freedom but still our children suffer and die

Seventeen years into our democracy, South Africa continues to fail the most vulnerable of its citizens - its children.

A disturbing report released yesterday by the UN Children's Fund and the SA Human Rights Commission said that 64%, or 11.9million, of our 18.6million children live in poverty, 1.4million rely on rivers or streams as their main source of water, and 1.5million have no toilet in their home.

The ravages of three centuries of apartheid-style policies obviously underpin the endemic poverty that continues to bedevil our society - according to the report, African children are 18 times more likely to grow up in poverty, and 12 times more likely to experience hunger, than white children.

But it is also true that service-delivery failures since 1994 are responsible for the government's failure to improve significantly the life of children in the poorest communities.

The report suggests that poor children are failed mainly by the health and education systems: most deaths of children under five were avoidable; 61% of all child deaths were due to "health system failures" and 582000 children who should be attending high school are not because the parents of 28% of them don't have the money for fees and 15% because of the perception that "education is useless". In addition, almost one in five pupils had to repeat Grade 10 or Grade 11.

These damning findings should give our politicians, educators, state doctors and nurses, and their managers in the civil service, pause for thought.

The government's development agenda, which has education, healthcare, housing and the provision of decent jobs at its core, is in danger of being laid to waste by multiple failures at the coal-face of delivery.

Only when corruption and inefficiency are stamped out will the billions spent on uplifting communities actually improve people's lives.

(This story was provided and used with permission by Timeslive.)