UNICEF Deplores Debt Crisis Toll on Children

At least 650,000 children died needlessly last year, partly as a result of the economic crisis in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.N. Children’s Fund said in its annual report.

Crushing debt has forced many developing nations to cut social spending, overshadowing the progress most nations made in the last decade in fostering better health and education for children and their parents, James P. Grant, UNICEF executive director, said in the report, “The State of the World’s Children.”

“Throughout most of Africa and much of Latin America, average incomes have fallen by 10% to 25% in the 1980s. In the 37 poorest nations, spending per head on health has been reduced by 50%, and on education by 25%, over the last few years,” he added.

“In many of the countries for which figures are available, child malnutrition is on the increase,” the report said.

Ten deeply indebted Latin American and Caribbean nations and six in Africa have experienced a slowing down in the reduction of mortality in children under age 5 in 1980-87, compared to results in 1970-80.

The nations are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Benin, Botswana, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria and Togo, according to Tony Hewett of UNICEF’s information division.

“For these 16 countries alone, the number of child deaths in the last 12 months is approximately 650,000 more than would have been the case if the 1970-80 rate of decline in under-5 mortality had continued,” Grant said.

“The majority of these deaths could therefore be said to be related to the slowing down or reversal of the development process during the 1980s, which is a result of unprecedented borrowing, rising interest rates, falling commodity prices, inadequate investment of borrowed funds and the domestic and international management of the resulting debt crisis,” he said.

Grant did not include nations convulsed by war or civil strife, such as Angola, Chad, Ethiopia and Mozambique, in order to limit his estimate of 650,000 annual deaths to strictly economic problems.