In recognition of the common problems faced by children and youth in the region, the developmental challenges this poses for Member States, and the need for collective, comprehensive and common solutions, the SADC ministers responsible for vulnerable children and for youth have adopted the SADC Minimum Package of Services for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children and Youth (OVY&C). The Minimum Package offers a regional guide for international organisations, donors, governments of the Member States, civil society and other stakeholders on what services must be provided in a comprehensive manner to the most vulnerable children and youth as well as the requisite implementation strategies.

The scope of the package

The term Minimum Package refers to those basic needs and services that are absolutely essential for children and youths’ optimum development and well-being.

A child is anyone younger than 18 and a youth, any person between the ages of 18 and 24.

The Minimum Package document targets vulnerable children and youth. Vulnerable children are defined as “children who are unable or who have a diminished capacity to access their basic needs and rights to survival, development, protection and participation as a result of their physical condition or social, cultural, economic or political circumstances and environment and require external support because their immediate care and support system can no longer cope.” Vulnerable youth are defined as “[p]ersons aged between 18 and 24 years who are unable or who have diminished capacity to access their rights to survival, development, protection and participation and may be at risk of being harmed, exploited and/or denied necessary age-specific developmental needs as a result of their physical condition, such as disability, unemployment, HIV infection and AIDS, armed conflict and war, living on the street, neglected by the parents, undocumented migrant status, substance abuse, among others.”

Minimum package of services

The basic needs and services identified in the document include:

• Education and vocation skills, which includes early childhood education and development (ECED), primary, secondary and tertiary level education.
• Health care and sanitation, which includes immunization; micronutrient supplementations; therapeutic feeding; oral rehydration therapy; prevention, treatment, care and support for malaria, TB and HIV and AIDS and other diseased; sexual and reproductive health; counselling and support for psychosocial disorders.
• Food security and nutrition, which is seen as primarily the mandate of the departments of agriculture and natural resources as well as sectors that coordinate child and youth development; these needs include food security and production, and the provision of nutrient-rich food for different age groups.
• Child and youth protection and safety covers basic needs such as shelter, clothing, building psychosocial skills and competencies and protection from physical, mental or psychosocial harm. Key services include birth registration, family tracing and reunification, counselling and rehabilitation, inheritance and legal support, alternative care and access to a supportive adult.
• Psychosocial well-being is a cross-cutting right that is necessary for all other basic needs to be achieved and sustained. Services include those that address psychological and social skills and knowledge, emotional and spiritual well-being, and social well-being. A companion PSS Conceptual Framework has been developed to support the realisation of this often, misunderstood component of child and youth well-being.
• Social protection is the provision of direct external and social assistance to restore services and rehabilitate often extreme cases of deprivation.

Addressing barriers to essential services

The document identifies a number of common barriers to the realisation of these services and proposes strategies to overcome these and to equalise enjoyment of the relevant right by all children. For example, lack of access to quality ECED is seen as a major barrier to the right to education, given that it results in poor cognitive, social and developmental stimulation for pre-school-aged vulnerable children.

In order to overcome this barrier, the document recommends that Member States provide early learning education and development opportunities for OVC of pre-school age and PSS for pre-school age children. Delivery mechanisms include the roll-out of basic early childhood education and care services and the integration of PSS for children into early childhood education and care priorities.

Copies of the SADC Minimum Package of Services for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children and Youth and the SADC Regional Conceptual Framework for Psychosocial Support for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children and Youth will be circulated to readers as soon as they have been published for circulation by SADC.