Office of the UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar
PRESS RELEASEMillennium Development Goals Report 2010: Deaths among children have dropped
globally, but the world’s governments are still far from meeting MDG
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK, and YANGON, MYANMAR 24 June)
Updated data onmortality rates among mothers and young children are likely to encourage G8 leaders, who attheir meeting later this week will make this health issue
long considered a neglected area of international development efforts
a 2010 priority.According to the United Nations annual assessment of progress on the eight MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs), released today, the number of deaths among children under the ageof 5 has dropped from 12.6 million in 1990 to an estimated 8.8 million in 2008, corresponding toa decline in the mortality rate from 100 deaths per 1,000 live births to 72 in 2008 (a 28 per centdecline). But progress is falling short of the MDG target under Goal 4, for a two-thirds reductionin childhood mortality rates between 1990 and 2015, and millions of children continue to die eachyear at a tragically young age.Progress has been recorded by many countries on maternal mortality, and the latest preliminarydata indicate that some countries have achieved significant declines. However, the rate of reduction is still well short of the 5.5 per cent annual reduction needed to meet the target underGoal 5, for slashing maternal mortality rates by three quarters between 1990 and 2015, the UNreports. Hundreds of thousands of women
99 per cent of them in the developing world
dieannually as a result of pregnancy or childbirth.
“For too long, maternal and child health has been at the back of the MDG train,” Secretary
-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this year at the UN, at the 14 April launch of an initiative for a joint action plan among governments, businesses, foundations and civil society organizations.
“But we know it can be the engine of development,” he continue
d, citing women as drivers of progress and healthy children as the starting point for a stronger, better educated and moreproductive citizenry.Maternal health is difficult to measure, because of underreporting and uncertainty as to whichfactors may be m
ost responsible for a mother’s death
Millennium Development Goals Report 2010
shows that the rural-urban gap in skilled care during childbirth has narrowed,and more women are receiving skilled healthcare during pregnancy.
action against killer diseases
In launching his initiative for a joint action plan, Secretary-General Ban cited progress againstHIV/AIDS as an example of what collective effort can achieve, and data from the
MDG Report 2010
backs up this assessment.
of HIV appears to have stabilized in most regions, and more people are surviving
longer,” the R
eport says, noting progress on the stated MDG target of halting and beginning to