| | |  Editorials | Issues 
The Save-the-World Clock - Part 6
 Elizabeth Dickinson - Foreign Policy
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September 23, 2010
| | (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images) | |
GOAL: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY
Target: As with women in childbirth, many of the children who die under the age of 5 perish from preventable and treatable conditions. Governments resolved to trim child mortality by two-thirds by 2015.
Reality: Mortality rates have certainly fallen overall, but not fast enough to reach the goal, and some 10 million children still die every year - almost half from four treatable causes: pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Moreover, a UNICEF study released on September 7 found that inequalities in child mortality are growing in some cases. The study warns that region- or country-wide averages tell a misleading story, as they "can conceal broad and even widening disparities in poverty" between rich and poor.
It's the poorest communities tend to be the most burdened by preventable childhood disease - they often lack sanitation and water treatment that would prevent conditions such as diarrhea in the first place; nor do they typically have access to the basic medical care. What's more, UNICEF notes, "the poorest and most marginalized communities are not systematically assessed and are often forgotten when national development plans are laid and resources allocated." Correcting this disparity will require a big push in the other direction, UNICEF now argues: Targeting children at the bottom of the income ladder will be the U.N. children's agency's focus over the coming five years.
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