25 years ago, the United Nations released their Millennium Development Goals. The goals were large, and the obstacles many, but nevertheless they pledged to do everything possible to meet these goals that they believed would impact our world for the better. They set goals for eight main categories, then further defined what they wanted to accomplish in each one.
Category 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Category 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Category 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Category 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Category 5: Improve Maternal Health
Category 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases
Category 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Category 8: Global Partnership for Development
Each goal was designed to be accomplished between 1990 and 2015. Well it’s 2015, and the official Millennium Development Goal Reports are finally starting to trickle in. Some goals fared better than others, but this week we want to talk about the report for “Category 4: Reduce Child Mortality”.
The specific goal for this category was pretty ambitious: Reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Two-thirds is a pretty big number, and it’s not surprising that we weren’t able to accomplish this goal. What we WERE able to accomplish, however, is still pretty impressive! Here’s the breakdown and overall thoughts on what we accomplished and the current reality of childhood mortality.
Although there is still much work to be done in order to address issues like childhood mortality, we think it’s really important to appreciate the work that has already been accomplished. We’ve come such a long way in the past 25 years, and we’re sure the next 25 will see some amazing changes as well!