Table 3.
Timeline of Key Milestones and Shifts in Global Health Priorities Pertaining to the Reduction of Infant Mortality
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1944 | UN Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, establishes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) |
| 1945 | United Nations is established |
| 1946 | United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) founded |
| 1946 | First meeting of the board of the World Bank |
| 1948 | Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) ratified by the first World Health Assembly |
| 1959 | World Health Assembly commits to a global smallpox eradication program |
| 1974 | WHO creates the Expanded Programme on Immunizations |
| 1974 | Alma‐Ata Declaration articulates the goal of primary health care and of achieving health for all by 2020 |
| 1969 | World Health Assembly declares it was not feasible to eradicate malaria |
| 1977 | Eradication of smallpox |
| 1980s | World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs |
| 1982 | UNICEF launches child survival agenda, which focused initially on 4 interventions: growth monitoring, oral rehydration, breastfeeding, and immunizations (GOBI) |
| 1984 | Bellagio conference in Bellagio, Italy. Those in attendance included the president of the World Bank, the vice president of the Ford Foundation, the administrator of USAID, and the executive secretary of UNICEF. Focus on “selective Primary Health Care,” with the goal of delivering pragmatic, low‐cost interventions, which were articulated as GOBI. Conference led to the formation of the Task Force for Child Survival, which included UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation, and agreement on Jim Grant's goal of immunizing 80% of the world's children against 6 major diseases by 1990 |
| 1990 | World Summit for Children, New York. Led by 71 heads of State and Government and 88 other senior officials, mostly at the ministerial level. Nations commit to a target of 70 deaths per 1,000 live births for children under 5 |
| 1995 | Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) program created |
| 2000 | Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) created |
| 2000 | Save the Children launches its Saving Newborn Lives program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
| 2000 | Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) established |
| 2005 | The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) is founded |
| 2005 | Lancet Neonatal Survival Series published |
| 2005 | Countdown to 2015 created as a multi‐institutional effort to track progress on the health‐related MDGs with PMNCH as the secretariat |
| 2010 | United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit; UN Secretary‐General Ban Ki‐moon launches Every Woman Every Child |
| 2012 | World Health Assembly endorses Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) |
| 2014 | WHO develops the Every Newborn Action Plan; WHO and UNICEF develop the integrated Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) |
| 2015 | Sustainable Development Goals established |
| 2016 | 2016‐2030 Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health |