No Child Born to Die: Closing the gaps

In the world’s poorest countries, children are dying at a rate too awful to think about. Preventable illnesses like malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea claim 8 million young lives every year.

Without access to the most basic health services, the goal the world has set itself – to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 – cannot be met.

This report analyses three fundamental gaps in healthcare services in poor countries:

• the millions of who children miss out on immunisations each year
• the shortage of health workers
• the severe shortfall in financing for basic healthcare.

We must make sure that governments, the private sector and civil society work together to create a world in which every child, wherever they are born, has the chance to reach their fifth birthday and to thrive.