Millennium Development Goals
What Are the Millennium Development Goals?
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
Currently, we could prevent about 70% of newborn deaths with available low-cost interventions, such as antibiotics, insecticide-treated bed nets, and nutritional supplements.
Right now, over 10 million children die each year from preventable causes such as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, malnutrition, and AIDS.
The 2015 target of halving the proportion of underweight children will be missed unless we expand basic health services in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
50% of the deaths of children under five years occur in sub-Saharan Africa, even though only 20% of the world’s children live in this region.
Sources:
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/goals.html
http://www.undp.org/mdg/goal4.shtml