More than 8.8 million children each year – more than the population of Greater London – die before their fifth birthday. That’s 24,000 every single day. Our government, in common with governments around the world, has committed to cut the rate of deaths by two thirds by 2015. But a lack of political will and focus means that we’re well off track for hitting this target. Immediate action is needed to turn this situation around.
A report we have released today shows that ninety nine in every hundred child deaths happen in the world’s poorest developing countries. The changes that are needed to confront this challenge need to come first and foremost from within these countries. Next year, world leaders will gather to review progress on the eight UN ‘Millennium Development Goals’ for tackling poverty and its underlying causes by 2015.
From the perspective of children living in the world’s poorest countries, this review is desperately needed. Only 30% of the progress needed to reach the fourth goal, of cutting child mortality by two-thirds, has happened. Progress on the closely connected target of cutting maternal deaths is even further off track.
Overwhelmingly, these deaths are indirectly caused by poverty, with 80% of the total happening in 30, mostly low income countries in Africa and South Asia. A large majority of them are directly caused by preventable neo-natal complications and infections, and conditions such as diarrhoea and pneumonia. A lack of proper nutrition and safe water and sanitation are a factor in over half of all cases of deaths among under-fives.
Pushing the health goals up the political agenda, and getting governments to address the causes of child death in more concerted and focused way, will require political pressure from individual citizens and communities, and from ‘civil society’: Non-Governmental Organisations like World Vision, the media, and professional, business and religious organisations.
Experience tells us that where governments have made significant strides towards the goal of cutting child deaths, it has been underpinned by popular demand and informed public debate. It has also been supported by effective donor aid, which itself requires ongoing popular pressure in countries like the UK.
Get behind the Child Health Now campaign and add your voice to the call on the British government to play a leading role in ending the silent emergency that claims almost nine million lives a year. Urge the Prime Minister to commit more aid to child health, and to give it in ways that ensure more child health for the money. Call on him to ensure that next year’s review of the Millennium Development Goals comes up with clear plans for the poorest countries to get back on track for the 2015 target. With your help, we can make a change.
Patrick Watt is head of public affairs and campaigns with World Vision UK. He has previously worked with ActionAid, Oxfam and the World Bank on aid and education, and has written on African development and the Millennium Development Goals.
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