While 90% of the 135 million infants born in the world each year live in low-income or developing countries, in a recent survey only 4% of the articles in 12 major international infancy and developmental journals were found to address the experience of infants living in the developing world. Yet, in conditions of extreme poverty and instability, conditions characteristic of Africa, the pressures on parents differ markedly from those facing parents in communities that are typically the focus of research in child development. This timely book addresses the dearth of literature in this area.

There is an increasing awareness of the need for a broader knowledge base regarding infant and child development. One of the consequences of this awareness is a burgeoning interest in research in the field in Africa. The recent World Health Organization report `Social Determinants of Health’ has focused the interest of the academy on factors outside traditional medicine, on the social determinants of later problems and the profound inequities that exist as a result of poverty and how these impact on infant and child development. This volume will sit squarely within this context and will offer a broad contextualised understanding of the factors that impact upon infant and child development in Africa. Unlike other works on the subject it is Africa-wide in its scope, with case studies in Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi and South Africa.

Recommended for: Academics, students and practitioners in psychology, including developmental psychology, child clinical psychology, developmental psychopathology, psychiatry, human ecology, and those in schools of education. It will also be of interest to nurses and paediatricians, health workers and for those interested in early childhood development.

Dr Mark Tomlinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa and is the Regional Editor (Africa) for the international journal Global: The Journal of Human Population Health and Development.