Financing Health in the Current Economic Climate: A life-threatening discussion

Six years to the Millennium Development Goals timeline of 2015, the world appears to be off-track to achieve the health-related targets.

Maternal mortality has stagnated in the last two decades, and child mortality declines are not happening as fast as necessary.

As a result, every year about half a million women die as a result of pregnancy-related or post-partum complications and over 9 million children under the age of 5 die mostly of easily preventable or treatable causes.

Perhaps even more worryingly, progress is very uneven, with the most disadvantaged socioeconomic groups and the poorest geographical areas being left behind.

In some countries child mortality is actually increasing.

And while historical data point to a global declining trend, these statistics mask an increasing concentration of the global burden of child deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This submission follows on the first reports of the two working groups and outlines what Save The Children UK considers the most pressing issues to be addressed to achieve the health MDGs.