Wanted: 11 million professionals to save Africa from 'disaster'

On average in Africa there are only 1.7 medical professionals per 1,000 inhabitants - well below the minimum international standard of 4.45 set by the World Health Organization. File picture: Sara Creta/MSF

On average in Africa there are only 1.7 medical professionals per 1,000 inhabitants - well below the minimum international standard of 4.45 set by the World Health Organization. File picture: Sara Creta/MSF

Published Oct 26, 2017

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London - Africa needs

11 million more doctors, nurses and teachers by 2030 to prevent

a "social and economic disaster" that could propel millions to

migrate, the United Nations said on Thursday.

It said the 11 million were needed to help the continent

cope with a booming population, with the number of children set

to increase by 170 million to 750 million in the next 13 years.

"We are at the most critical juncture for Africa's

children," Leila Pakkala of the United Nations Children's Fund

(UNICEF) said in a statement.

"Get it right, and we could ... lift hundreds of millions

out of extreme poverty, and contribute to enhanced prosperity,

stability, and peace," said Pakkala, who heads UNICEF operations

in eastern and southern Africa.

The UN's children agency attributed the boom in births to

high fertility rates, a rising number of women of reproductive

age and lower child mortality.

By the end of the century, one in two children worldwide

will live in Africa, it said in a study.

If they reach working age both schooled and healthy, they

could spur economic growth - but for that to happen, Pakkala

said investment in education and health were badly needed.

More schools must be built, it said. And teachers, doctors,

midwives and health workers must be trained and encouraged to

stay in their community rather than move to cities or abroad.

The road is uphill.

More than one in five Africans aged 6 to 11 are not in

school. Girls, in particular, are more likely never to see a

classroom, waylayed by child marriage and teenage pregnancy.

Six in ten Africans lack access to basic sanitation and on

average there are only 1.7 medical professionals per 1,000

inhabitants - well below the minimum international standard of

4.45 set by the World Health Organization.

To bridge the gap, 5.6 million health workers and 5.8

million teachers have to be trained by 2030.

If it fails to invest in its future, Africa risks a

"demographic disaster, characterised by unemployment and

instability," UNICEF said.

It painted a picture where a lack of jobs, rapid

urbanisation and climate change could force millions to flee the

continent seeking a better life overseas.

Robert Yates, a health expert at the British think tank

Chatham House, said 11 million teachers and medics was a

challenging goal but not unfeasible, as shown by the rapid

development of some Asian countries, such as Thailand and China.

But this required a strong political will to boost public

spending on health and education - rare in sub-Saharan Africa.

Nigeria, which currently accounts for 20 percent of all

Africa's births, for example spends only 0.9 percent of its GDP

on public health, one of the lowest rates in the world.

Exceptions in recent decades included South

Africa, Rwanda and Ethiopia, Yates said.

"What is important is that other countries follow this

lead," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Thomson Reuters Foundation

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