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LEAGUE TABLE:  The Child Risk Measure

This child risk measure is a new, and admittedly unfinished, idea, sparked by some of the issues presented in the essay on the birth of the world's 6 billionth child. The measure's merits and failings were scrutinized and debated during its preparation. It does not, for instance, incorporate a number of important risks that children face in industrialized countries — such as latchkey loneliness or alienation — because indicators do not exist for them. But despite its weaknesses, UNICEF puts this measure forward in order to launch an idea and a discussion. The world could well benefit from an improved approach to measuring children's welfare, one that reflects new knowledge about how children develop and that captures some of the most important new hazards children face. This attempt is offered as a step in that direction.

Measuring children's risks

For all children, entering this world entails risks, with the chance of full and healthful development dependent on a range of factors and sometimes, it seems, fate. The child risk measure (CRM) at right is an attempt to capture in numbers some of the risks a child faces until the age of 18. In this index, higher numbers represent greater risk. Using this gauge, a child faces the highest risk, an average of 61, in sub-Saharan Africa. A child in Europe faces the lowest, at 6.

The CRM, still a work in progress, was designed as a composite of five factors which have great impact on a child's well-being. The three developmental factors are under-five mortality, moderate or severe underweight and primary schooling. The other two are the likelihood of risk from armed conflict and from HIV/AIDS, increasingly important influences on a child's rights and well-being.

Conflict affects children of all ages directly, putting them in immediate danger, and indirectly, by depriving them of health care, education or even food. Where adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are high, children are at risk not just of acquiring the infection from their mothers, but also of suffering the loss of one or both parents, depriving that child of protection and support.

A number of factors that adversely affect adolescent development, such as child labour, sexual exploitation and lack of family support, do not form a part of this composite. This is due to a lack of data in many countries on these issues.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA		MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA		CENTRAL ASIA
Angola	96	Sudan	59	Afghanistan	94
Sierra Leone	95	Yemen	49	Regional average	41
Somalia	92	Iraq	39	Georgia	27
Ethiopia	85	Algeria	26	Azerbaijan	24
Guinea-Bissau	80	Regional average	24	Uzbekistan	23
Niger	80	Kuwait	24	Turkmenistan	21
Congo, Dem. Rep.	76	Saudi Arabia	24	Kyrgyzstan	13
Burundi	74	Egypt	21	Kazakhstan	12
Eritrea	74	Morocco	21	Armenia	No data
Liberia	74	Lebanon	18	Tajikstan	No data
Rwanda	70	Iran	17
Guinea	69	Oman	17
Chad	67	U. Arab Emirates	16
Mali	64	Turkey	15
Mozambique	63	Syria	13
Central African Rep.	62	Jordan	11
Regional average	61	Tunisia	8
Burkina Faso	60	Libya	6
Nigeria	59	Israel	No data
Zambia	58
Uganda	57
Malawi	55
Tanzania	53
Congo	51
Côte d'Ivoire	51
Madagascar	49
Zimbabwe	48
Cameroon	47
Kenya	46
Lesotho	46
Togo	46
Benin	45
Mauritania	45
Botswana	42
Namibia	42
Senegal	38
Ghana	36
Gambia	35
Gabon	32
South Africa	25
Mauritius	11

EAST/SOUTH ASIA AND PACIFIC		AMERICAS		EUROPE
Cambodia	60	Haiti	47	Yugoslavia	29
Papua New Guinea	55	Guatemala	33	Albania	17
Korea, Dem.	50	El Salvador	22	Belarus	11
Pakistan	49	Nicaragua	22	Russian Fed.	11
Bangladesh	47	Bolivia	21	TFYR Macedonia*	11
Bhutan	46	Peru	19	Croatia	10
India	45	Honduras	18	Estonia	10
Myanmar	44	Colombia	16	Czech Rep.	8
Nepal	44	Dominican Rep.	16	Latvia	8
Lao PDR	42	Venezuela	16	Bulgaria	7
Sri Lanka	39	Ecuador	13	Regional average	6
Indonesia	34	Mexico	11	Greece	6
Regional average	31	Regional average	10	Romania	6
Viet Nam	31	Trinidad/Tobago	10	Austria	<5
Mongolia	25	Panama	9	Belgium	<5
Philippines	31	Brazil	8	Denmark	<5
Thailand	22	Chile	8	Finland	<5
Malaysia	14	Jamaica	8	France	<5
China	13	Paraguay	8	Germany	<5
Korea, Rep.	5	Cuba	6	Hungary	<5
Australia	<5	Uruguay	6	Ireland	<5
Japan	<5	Argentina	5	Italy	<5
New Zealand	<5	Canada	<5	Netherlands	<5
Singapore	<5	Costa Rica	<5	Norway	<5
		United States	<5	Poland	<5
				Portugal	<5
				Slovenia	<5
				Spain	<5
				Sweden	<5
				Switzerland	<5
				United Kingdom	<5
				Bosnia/Herzegovina	No data
				Lithuania	No data
				Moldova, Rep.	No data
				Slovakia	No data
				Ukraine	No data

Note: < = less than.
* The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, subsequently referred to as TFYR Macedonia.
Source: UNICEF.

• U5MR - under-five mortality rate in 1997;
• UNDWT - per cent of children moderately or severely underweight (period 1987-98);
• NAPSCH - per cent of primary school age children not attending school (period 1987-97);
• CONFLICT - security rating derived for 1998 from UNICEF Security Advisory;
• HIVAIDS - HIV/AIDS prevalence rate for 15- to 49-year-olds, in 1997.

CRM = (U5MR + UNDWT + NAPSCH)/3 + CONFLICT/4 + HIVAIDS/4

The CRM is limited by availability of data. But it is also affected by the quality and timeliness of data. Taking the Congo as an example, its U5MR is a projection based on 1974 census data. If its current under-five mortality were in actuality the same as its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, its CRM would change from 51 to 65.

The measure's composition is an important — and perhaps controversial — factor. If, for example, child mortality had been given twice the weight of the other two development indicators, the largest changes in the CRM would be found in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (from 50 to 36), Sierra Leone (95 to 103) and Sri Lanka (39 to 31). All other countries would change by 6 points or less, with most countries changing by only 1 point or less.

Differences of 5 points or less between countries' risk measures are not considered significant. For this reason, countries with CRM values of less than 5 have been noted as '<5' in the league table.

Child mortality, underweight and primary schooling indicators, measured in the recent past, are strongly related to their values now and in the near future, provided that violent upheavals - such as armed conflict and the AIDS epidemic — do not occur. With the inclusion of the last two factors, the CRM more fully reflects child risk both now and over the next few years.