Charity condemns child survival “lottery”

Ten million children under 5 years old die each year across the world, warns Save the Children in a new campaign aimed at getting countries back on target to achieve the millennium development goal to reduce mortality in under 5s by two thirds by 2015.

The charity has compiled a “wealth and survival index” that compares child mortality in each country with its national income per person. It claims that the index shows “who is making the most of what they have and who is squandering their resources.”

Its director of policy, David Mepham, said, “A child’s chance of making it to its fifth birthday depends on the country or community it is born into. This sounds like a lottery, something beyond human control, but this should not be the case.”

He added, “While poverty and inequality are consistent underlying causes of child deaths, all countries—even the poorest—can cut child mortality if they pursue the right policies and prioritise their poorest families. Good government choices save children’s lives, but bad ones are a death sentence.”

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for almost half of all childhood deaths and has 19 of the worst performing countries, despite economic growth in the region that is almost three times the global average. Oil rich Angola is singled out for “failing to convert its relatively high income into a real difference to the number of child deaths.”

Data for Angola show that despite the country having nearly three times the income of the next on the list (Sierra Leone) mortality among children under 5 is only slightly lower. Angola’s death rate of 260 per 1000 is 162 higher than would be predicted for the size of the country’s economy.

From 2000 to 2006 Bangladesh’s gross national income per capita rose by 23% and its child mortality among under 5s dropped by 25%. India’s gross national income per capita rose by 82% but its child mortality fell by only 19% over the same period.

The report considered that Bangladesh is a success. It says, “In 1998 the government put its resources and its political weight behind a national initiative to tackle childhood illness and reduce levels of fertility. Ten years later that policy decision has paid off. Bangladesh, despite its relatively low GNI [gross national income], is one of the few countries on track to meet the child survival millennium development goal.”

Save the Children is calling on governments of developing countries and international donors to:

• Invest in free health care, clean water, and sanitation and to support women’s education and act against poverty

• Convene a global summit on hunger among children and mothers

• Agree clear targets that focus on the effect of policies on maternal and child health and nutrition, and

• Tackle health inequality as part of the millennium development goals.

“Change is possible,” Mr Mepham said. “This report shows what can and must be done to help save children’s lives. If we want to get the world on track to deliver the goals we need to maximise the big opportunities of 2008, like the G8 [meeting] in July and the UN general assembly in September.”