Girl-friendliness scale in Africa

A new, comprehensive flagship report shows how friendly African governments are towards girls and the extent to which they meet their legal obligations.

The 2020 African Report on Child Wellbeing, launched by the African Child Policy Forum, analyses the status of girls on the continent using the girl-friendly index. Importantly, the views of girls are prominent – as they share concerns, fears, wishes and legal demands.

Many girls are at risk of sexual exploitation, harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage, dropping out of school, extreme violence and abduction.

The report shows girls occupy a vulnerable position in African society. Social norms, practices and attitudes are prejudicial to their life, survival and development.

Overall, the countries that score highest as friendly towards girls are Mauritius, Tunisia, South Africa, Seychelles, Algeria, Cabo Verde and Namibia. Rwanda, Togo, Namibia, South Africa and Mauritius ranked high for solid legal and policy frameworks and institutional enforcement mechanisms.

In terms of spending on girls’ education, the report found that Eswatini, Tunisia, Lesotho and Mozambique performed comparatively highly in line with each country’s budget allocation.

The report found girls in many African states do not have access to adequate healthcare and lack access to nutritious food, education and other basic services.

Fambasayi is a doctoral researcher at North West University