This paper is about crises of social reproduction in two African countries, - one in West Africa the
other in the South. To this end some facts on economic and child development in Ghana and Botswana
are highlighted. These are two countries praised internationally by economists in the recent past for
their apparent development successes. They are however also among the many countries with persistent,
unacceptably high levels of infant and young child under development and under nutrition. For too
long such human deprivation, and its serious, long term effects, has been omitted from the agenda of
economists and sustainable development experts.
At the same time the problem of arrested development has too often been perceived in the past by
Early Child Development experts as a challenge for mothers alone. Here we call attention to the profound
transformations in family systems and family care, - in particular the often ignored disruptions in
support for mother care, - which have occurred over recent decades in both countries. We note how
these appear implicated in the widely truncated levels of early child development recorded. Concern
is now mounting that the latter are potentially prejudicial, not only to adult human development and
capabilities, but also to national economic development and its sustainability.
It is argued here that ignorance or neglect of the familial transformations and consequent potential
deficits in child care, in both economic and sociological analyses, are likely to hamper the successful
diagnosis of the nature of the national challenges involved. They are also likely to constrain and inhibit
the design, effectiveness and execution of policies and programs based upon them.
As regards academia, the need is underlined to pay more than lip service to a “human economy” and
for more enlightened, consilient (multi-disciplinary) analysis of the crucial transformations taking place
over time in the “family/work” nexus. A more feminist, gender sensitive, economics is required and a
social science, which more actively embraces the challenges of social (and biological) reproduction, as
experienced by the majority of the people of the world; - an increasingly modern and post modern
world, - in which the parental stresses and strains of reproductive/productive role conflicts continue to
escalate, - as individuation, individualization and individualism spread apace.
This paper incidentally harks back to classic anthropological studies of kinship, marriage and child care
in Western and Southern Africa, and urges the application of more ethnographic insights into current
transformations in parenthood and more anthropological focus upon global transformations in familial
systems of care and their consequences, for infant and young child growth and development. By so
doing anthropologists could help provide yet more enlightenment for public health agendas and for
social policies, promoting both Early Child Development and sustainable economic development.
The post script highlights a welcome emerging turn in global, international development discourse on
nutrition, towards recognition of the key part played by family care provision in Early Child
Development, underlining the urgent need for further comparative study of such vital processes in
domestic groups around the world, and how they are being transformed, and with what outcomes.