The child mortality rate in Africa has steadily declined over the past seven decades. In 2023, it reached 63 deaths per thousand births. In 1950, child mortality was significantly higher, estimated at 327 deaths per thousand births, meaning that almost one-third of all children born in these years did not make it to their fifth birthday. While the reduction rate varies on a country-by-country basis, the overall decline can be attributed in large part to the expansion of healthcare services, improvements in nutrition and access to clean drinking water, and the implementation of large-scale immunization campaigns across the continent. The temporary slowdown in the 1980s and 1990s has been attributed in part to rapid urbanization of many parts of the continent that coincided with poor economic performance, resulting in the creation of overcrowded slums with poor access to health and sanitation services. Despite significant improvements in the continent-wide averages, there remains a significant imbalance in the continent, with Sub-Saharan countries experiencing much higher child mortality rates than those in North Africa.

In 2025, the mortality rate among children under the age of one in Africa was around ** deaths per thousand live births. Infant mortality on the continent decreased significantly compared to 2000, when approximately ** newborn infants out of a thousand died before one year of age. Many African nations rank among the countries with the highest infant mortality rate worldwide.

The average for 2022 based on 53 countries was 7 deaths per 1000 births. The highest value was in Niger: 20 deaths per 1000 births and the lowest value was in Algeria: 1 deaths per 1000 births. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

UNICEF's country profile for Central African Republic, including under-five mortality rates, child health, education and sanitation data.

This graph shows the under-five child mortality rate per 1,000 live births in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1970 to 2010. In 1970, the child mortality rate was *** from every 1,000 live births. By 2010, this rate had decreased to *** deaths per 1,000 live births.

This dataset provides estimates of the probability of child death from 1998 to 2017 for each country in Africa at the first administrative divisions.

BackgroundDespite the sharp decline in global under-5 deaths since 1990, uneven progress has been achieved across and within countries. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for child mortality were met only by a few countries. Valid concerns exist as to whether the region would meet new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for under-5 mortality. We therefore examine further sources of variation by assessing age patterns, trends, and forecasts of mortality rates.Methods and findingsData came from 106 nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs) with full birth histories from 31 SSA countries from 1990 to 2017 (a total of 524 country-years of data). We assessed the distribution of age at death through the following new demographic analyses. First, we used a direct method and full birth histories to estimate under-5 mortality rates (U5MRs) on a monthly basis. Second, we smoothed raw estimates of death rates by age and time by using a two-dimensional P-Spline approach. Third, a variant of the Lee–Carter (LC) model, designed for populations with limited data, was used to fit and forecast age profiles of mortality. We used mortality estimates from the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) to adjust, validate, and minimize the risk of bias in survival, truncation, and recall in mortality estimation. Our mortality model revealed substantive declines of death rates at every age in most countries but with notable differences in the age patterns over time. U5MRs declined from 3.3% (annual rate of reduction [ARR] 0.1%) in Lesotho to 76.4% (ARR 5.2%) in Malawi, and the pace of decline was faster on average (ARR 3.2%) than that observed for infant (IMRs) (ARR 2.7%) and neonatal (NMRs) (ARR 2.0%) mortality rates. We predict that 5 countries (Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda) are on track to achieve the under-5 sustainable development target by 2030 (25 deaths per 1,000 live births), but only Rwanda and Tanzania would meet both the neonatal (12 deaths per 1,000 live births) and under-5 targets simultaneously. Our predicted NMRs and U5MRs were in line with those estimated by the UN IGME by 2030 and 2050 (they overlapped in 27/31 countries for NMRs and 22 for U5MRs) and by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) by 2030 (26/31 and 23/31, respectively). This study has a number of limitations, including poor data quality issues that reflected bias in the report of births and deaths, preventing reliable estimates and predictions from a few countries.ConclusionsTo our knowledge, this study is the first to combine full birth histories and mortality estimates from external reliable sources to model age patterns of under-5 mortality across time in SSA. We demonstrate that countries with a rapid pace of mortality reduction (ARR ≥ 3.2%) across ages would be more likely to achieve the SDG mortality targets. However, the lower pace of neonatal mortality reduction would prevent most countries from achieving those targets: 2 countries would reach them by 2030, 13 between 2030 and 2050, and 13 after 2050.

South Africa ZA: Mortality Rate: Under-5: Male: per 1000 Live Births data was reported at 47.700 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 48.500 Ratio for 2015. South Africa ZA: Mortality Rate: Under-5: Male: per 1000 Live Births data is updated yearly, averaging 58.300 Ratio from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 72.100 Ratio in 2000 and a record low of 47.700 Ratio in 2016. South Africa ZA: Mortality Rate: Under-5: Male: per 1000 Live Births data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s South Africa – Table ZA.World Bank: Health Statistics. Under-five mortality rate, male is the probability per 1,000 that a newborn male baby will die before reaching age five, if subject to male age-specific mortality rates of the specified year.; ; Estimates Developed by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN DESA Population Division) at www.childmortality.org.; Weighted Average; Given that data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. Moreover, they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries. Under-five mortality rates are higher for boys than for girls in countries in which parental gender preferences are insignificant. Under-five mortality captures the effect of gender discrimination better than infant mortality does, as malnutrition and medical interventions have more significant impacts to this age group. Where female under-five mortality is higher, girls are likely to have less access to resources than boys.

This statistic shows the 20 countries* with the highest infant mortality rate in 2024. An estimated 101.3 infants per 1,000 live births died in the first year of life in Afghanistan in 2024. Infant and child mortality Infant mortality usually refers to the death of children younger than one year. Child mortality, which is often used synonymously with infant mortality, is the death of children younger than five. Among the main causes are pneumonia, diarrhea – which causes dehydration – and infections in newborns, with malnutrition also posing a severe problem. As can be seen above, most countries with a high infant mortality rate are developing countries or emerging countries, most of which are located in Africa. Good health care and hygiene are crucial in reducing child mortality; among the countries with the lowest infant mortality rate are exclusively developed countries, whose inhabitants usually have access to clean water and comprehensive health care. Access to vaccinations, antibiotics and a balanced nutrition also help reducing child mortality in these regions. In some countries, infants are killed if they turn out to be of a certain gender. India, for example, is known as a country where a lot of girls are aborted or killed right after birth, as they are considered to be too expensive for poorer families, who traditionally have to pay a costly dowry on the girl’s wedding day. Interestingly, the global mortality rate among boys is higher than that for girls, which could be due to the fact that more male infants are actually born than female ones. Other theories include a stronger immune system in girls, or more premature births among boys.

Department of Education has provided us with the data about learner's causes of death. It comes from the Annual School Survey. The dataset only excludes Free State 2014 because there is no disclosure of type of death. This dataset refers only to the deaths reported by Educational Institutions, for general causes of deaths for all children please refer to causes of death dataset.

BackgroundAround 8.8 million children under-five die each year, mostly due to infectious diseases, including malaria that accounts for 16% of deaths in Africa, but the impact of international financing of malaria control on under-five mortality in sub-Saharan Africa has not been examined. Methods and FindingsWe combined multiple data sources and used panel data regression analysis to study the relationship among investment, service delivery/intervention coverage, and impact on child health by observing changes in 34 sub-Saharan African countries over 2002–2008. We used Lives Saved Tool to estimate the number of lives saved from coverage increase of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs)/indoor residual spraying (IRS). As an indicator of outcome, we also used under-five mortality rate. Global Fund investments comprised more than 70% of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) for malaria control in 34 countries. Each $1 million ODA for malaria enabled distribution of 50,478 ITNs [95%CI: 37,774–63,182] in the disbursement year. 1,000 additional ITNs distributed saved 0.625 lives [95%CI: 0.369–0.881]. Cumulatively Global Fund investments that increased ITN/IRS coverage in 2002–2008 prevented an estimated 240,000 deaths. Countries with higher malaria burden received less ODA disbursement per person-at-risk compared to lower-burden countries ($3.90 vs. $7.05). Increased ITN/IRS coverage in high-burden countries led to 3,575 lives saved per 1 million children, as compared with 914 lives in lower-burden countries. Impact of ITN/IRS coverage on under-five mortality was significant among major child health interventions such as immunisation showing that 10% increase in households with ITN/IRS would reduce 1.5 [95%CI: 0.3–2.8] child deaths per 1000 live births. ConclusionsAlong with other key child survival interventions, increased ITNs/IRS coverage has significantly contributed to child mortality reduction since 2002. ITN/IRS scale-up can be more efficiently prioritized to countries where malaria is a major cause of child deaths to save greater number of lives with available resources.

The average for 2022 based on 47 countries was 54 deaths per 1000 births. The highest value was in Niger: 114 deaths per 1000 births and the lowest value was in Cape Verde: 11 deaths per 1000 births. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Female child mortality rate of South Africa improved by 0.95% from 31.6 deaths per thousand live births in 2022 to 31.9 deaths per thousand live births in 2023. Since the 1.26% reduction in 2020, female child mortality rate grew by 1.92% in 2023. Child mortality rate is the probability of dying between the exact ages of one and five, if subject to current age-specific mortality rates. The probability is expressed as a rate per 1,000.

In 2021, the region of Africa had the highest child mortality rate worldwide, with some 72 deaths per one thousand live births. This statistic depicts the child mortality worldwide among children under five years of age in 2021, by region and per 1,000 live births.

Important Note: This item is in mature support as of August 2025 and will be retired in December 2026. Please use this source dataset and follow the steps in the From Vector to Raster blog as a replacement for this service. Esri recommends updating your maps and apps. The annual infant mortality rate in Africa ranges from 99 to 2031 deaths of children less than one-year-old per 10,000 live births. This layer provides access to an approximately 5 km cell sized raster of the Global Subnational Infant Mortality Rates dataset that provides the number of deaths of children less than one-year-old per 10,000 live births in the year 2000. The data cover Africa, Madagascar, and other islands near Africa and were produced by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center in 2005. Link to source metadata Dataset SummaryAnalysis: Restricted single source analysis. Maximum size of analysis is 24,000 x 24,000 pixels. What can you do with this layer?This layer has query, identify, and export image services available. The layer is restricted to a 24,000 x 24,000 pixel limit for these services. The source data for this layer are available here. Restricted single source analysis means this layer has size constraints for analysis and it is not recommended for use with other layers in multisource analysis. This layer is part of a larger collection of landscape layers that you can use to perform a wide variety of mapping and analysis tasks.

In 2023, the under-five child mortality rate in East Africa was highest in Somalia, with ****** deaths per one thousand live births. South Sudan followed, with ***** deaths per one thousand live births. The under five mortality rate, also known as the child mortality rate, refers to the number of newborns who do not survive past the first five years of life. This is generally expressed as a value per 1,000 live births. Child mortality also includes neonatal mortality (deaths within the first 28 days of life) and infant mortality (deaths within the first year of life).

In 2022, the child mortality rate of South Africa was around 35 deaths per thousand live births, meaning that for every thousand children born in South Africa that year, about 35 would not survive past their fifth birthday. However, child mortality in the country has followed a gradual declining trend since 2012.

Additional file 1. a. Community and health facility causes of neonatal deaths in four sub-Saharan Africa countries. b. Community and health facility causes of 1–59-month deaths in four sub-Saharan Africa countries.

South Africa ZA: Mortality Rate: Infant: per 1000 Live Births data was reported at 34.200 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 35.500 Ratio for 2015. South Africa ZA: Mortality Rate: Infant: per 1000 Live Births data is updated yearly, averaging 46.300 Ratio from Dec 1974 (Median) to 2016, with 43 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 88.100 Ratio in 1974 and a record low of 34.200 Ratio in 2016. South Africa ZA: Mortality Rate: Infant: per 1000 Live Births data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s South Africa – Table ZA.World Bank: Health Statistics. Infant mortality rate is the number of infants dying before reaching one year of age, per 1,000 live births in a given year.; ; Estimates developed by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN DESA Population Division) at www.childmortality.org.; Weighted Average; Given that data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. Moreover, they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries. Under-five mortality rates are higher for boys than for girls in countries in which parental gender preferences are insignificant. Under-five mortality captures the effect of gender discrimination better than infant mortality does, as malnutrition and medical interventions have more significant impacts to this age group. Where female under-five mortality is higher, girls are likely to have less access to resources than boys.

Additional file 2. All projections of CSMF accuracy comparing population cause distributions estimated with verbal autopsies of facility deaths to observed population cause distributions from verbal autopsies of community and facility deaths, in four sub-Saharan Africa countries.