Reduce child mortality

Every year almost 10 million children in developing countries die before the age of five.

Most die from causes that are readily preventable in rich countries: acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, measles, and malaria. Rapid improvements before 1990 gave hope that mortality rates for infants and children under five could be cut by two-thirds in the following 25 years. But progress slowed almost everywhere in the 1990s.

On average, all regions except Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are close to achieving the target. But even there, more than half the countries are off track. Progress has been particularly slow in Sub-Saharan Africa, where civil disturbances and the HIV/AIDS epidemic have driven up rates of infant and child mortality. Progress in South Asia as a whole is slow due high child mortality in India and Pakistan. Based on the most recent data available, only 33 developing countries are making enough progress to reduce under-five mortality rates to one-third of their 1990 level by 2015.