Here in Melbourne, Save the Children Australia is playing a very active part in the UN DPI/NGO conference on global health. Today Jasmine Whitbread and I took part in a discussion about the Millennium Development Goals and lessons learned for any targets which might apply after 2015.
A new survey published this week tells us that eight out of ten among the middle-class in cities across India underestimate the levels of child mortality. But does it actually matter what the middle classes think?
Every year figures on child deaths are released to track how countries are progressing towards Millennium Development Goal 4—to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Reductions in under-five mortality are usually reported as national averages however, masking the unequal progress across different groups within a country. A new Save the Children paper entitled “Inequalities in child survival: looking at wealth and other socio-economic disparities in developing countries” outlines a number of important issues surrounding children’s unequal survival prospects.
In this week’s Lancet, there is a very thought-provoking article about the way that research institutions, UN agencies and NGOs contribute to the “braindrain” by drawing health staff away from government employment. This has long been a major worry of mine but there is not a simple answer to the question: who should NGOs employ?
Sierra Leone’s Free Health Care Initiative is becoming pretty famous for a boring policy change on health system financing. And Naomi Campbell isn’t even involved. There is something about the boldness, the high-profile and the level of commitment with which Sierra Leone announced the total removal of charges for healthcare for children under 5, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers that has inspired people. I am in Freetown in Sierra Leone to learn how it is progressing and what we can glean from this for other countries.
It is interesting to see and hear CSOs on local TV and radio talk shows discussing maternal newborn and child health issues rather than the usual political debate of who becomes president or parliamentarian in Liberia.
Sitting on the banks of the Thames at Henley looking at families with babies enjoying their picnics I couldn’t help but reflect on the stark contrast this was to the mothers and babies I’d met in Niger. There’s no such thing as leisure time for mothers there and little in the way of children’s toys.
Where you’re born and who you’re born to in Nigeria has a big impact on your likelihood to survive. Those coming from the poorest households are 2.5 times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than those from the richest households. Children in the north-west are also over two times more likely to die than those in the south-west of the country.
After many years it remains the case that we do not really know how to prevent transmission of HIV. Of course we know the mechanics: that condoms and clean needles & syringes mean that the virus will not pass from one person to another. But we still don’t know the strategies that will get these actions adopted in sufficient numbers to reduce transmission in a society.
Today I’m recovering from the last three-day-marathon of the heads of state meeting at the African Union summit. With the theme of “Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Development in Africa,” this summit offered the perfect chance to mobilise action to save the lives of millions of children and mothers.
The views and information in the blogs and comments are those of the individual contributors and not those of Save the Children UK. We do not guarantee or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or information contained in the blogs or comments. We do not accept any liability for loss or damage arising from the use of or reliance on any content that is accessed through, or downloaded from the blogs and comments pages.
Blog comments are submitted automatically; we do not edit them. But we reserve the right to remove any comment that we believe contains material that is obscene, offensive, inflammatory, defamatory of any person or entity, or that is otherwise illegal or inappropriate. If you wish to report a comment for any reason, email us at webeditor@savethechildren.org.uk
