Millennium Development Goal 4, Children\u27s Health and Implementation Challenges in Africa: Does A Human Rights Based Appoach Suffice?

That the state of children’s health in Africa is abysmal is incontrovertible. Proof, if there is need for one, is the perennial underperformance of the vast majority of countries in the region in key dimensions of children’s health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, the point of interest in health policy literature is not on the underperformance per se but on the underlying causes and possible antidotes – a reason Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 (on reducing child mortality) holds special significance for countries in the region. This paper advances scholarship in this very critical area by projecting human rights as holding the key that could unlock the suffocating stranglehold ill-health irrepressibly wields over the lives of millions of children in Africa