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Child Welfare · Africa ranking

Child Wasting by African country

12.1%Djibouti · highest shown · 2023

Djibouti has the highest reported wasting prevalence among children under 5 among the 7 countries shown, at 12.1% (2023).

Share of children under 5 who are wasted (low weight-for-height), a marker of acute undernutrition. 7 of 54 countries are shown. Open a country to see its source details and available history.

Latest available year varies by country (20232024). Only observations within 2 years of the freshest result are included, and each row shows its period.

#1 vs #77.4×Djibouti vs Lesotho
Median7.2%Democratic Republic of the Congo
Lowest1.6%Lesotho

By region

unweighted mean of countries shown
East Africa10%
2 countries shown · highest value: Djibouti
West Africa7.8%
2 countries shown · highest value: Senegal
Central Africa7.2%
1 countries shown · highest value: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Southern Africa3.4%
2 countries shown · highest value: Zimbabwe

Full ranking

7 of 54 countries
#CountryChild WastingPeriod
1Djibouti
12.1%2023
2Senegal
10.2%2023
3Burundi
7.8%2024
4Democratic Republic of the Congo
7.2%2023
5Mali
5.4%2024
6Zimbabwe
5.1%2024
7Lesotho
1.6%2024

Get this ranking via API

GET /v1/data

Request the latest available Child Wasting values for the selected countries as JSON. The response includes source metadata; check reporting periods before comparing values.

curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data?metric_key=wasting_under5_pct&latest=true&country_codes=NG,KE,ZA,EG" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"

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Paste this snippet into a page that supports iframes. The chart loads the available ranking observations and includes their reporting periods. A link to this page is included.

<iframe src="https://africa-api.com/embed/child-wasting" width="100%" height="560" loading="lazy" style="border:1px solid #e3e3e3;border-radius:10px;max-width:640px" title="Child Wasting by African country — Africa API"></iframe>
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About this ranking

Which observations are included?

The table includes 7 of 54 countries with available observations for 2023 or later and within 2 years of the freshest result. Each row shows its reporting period. Countries without an eligible observation are omitted.

Does a higher value mean a better result?

The table is sorted by value, from highest to lowest. The order does not rate a country's performance. Interpretation depends on the indicator and its definition.

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