Child health: Generating the will
Publisher/Organizer: Global Future
Publication date: 2009, 2
Language: English
Overview
Once upon a time . . . the international community committed to a grand vision of achieving health for all through primary health care.
More than 20 years later, in 2000, world leaders agreed on a new set of ambitious targets for addressing global poverty by 2015 through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This plan included a global commitment to reduce under-five mortality by two thirds (MDG 4) and to improve maternal health (MDG 5).
So how are we doing so far to make this dream a reality?
At present, only 16 out of 68 countries with the highest rates of child death are on track to reach this goal. More graphically, 25,000 children are dying each day – yet we have the means to prevent two thirds of these deaths through proven and affordable interventions. As an international community, we are guilty of failing to end this travesty.
This edition of Global Future explores the nature of political will and what is required to reverse our failure. Our authors lay out the “why, who, what and how” of the actions needed to realise MDGs 4 and 5 and give us hope that we can quickly get on track.
Contributors to this edition include:
- The Honourable Bob McMullan MP - Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Australia
- Dr Henry Perry - Carl Taylor Professor of Equity and Empowerment, Future Generations
- Dr Flavia Bustreo - Director for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Secretariat in Geneva
- Ms Rachel Hammonds - licensed attorney specialising in the right to health, development and children’s rights - with Dr Gorik Ooms - human rights lawyer
- Dr Elizabeth Mason - Director of the Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development (CAH), for the World Health Organization
- Professor Lawrence O Gostin - the Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Melbourne; Visiting Professor of Global Health, University of Sydney; holds the O’Neill Chair of Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center
- World Vision staff contributors
- PLUS "Voices of life from around the globe" - case studies from Brazil, Indonesia and Bosnia and Herzegovina