Mortality: The world experienced dramatic progress in young child survival over the past two decades. The global under-five mortality rate declined from 76 per 1000 live births in 2000 to 39 in 2018. Despite this progress, 5.3 million children under five years of age died in 2018 with nearly half of these deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

Causes of death: The leading causes of death in children under-5 years are preterm birth complications, pneumonia, birth asphyxia, diarrhoea and malaria. Nearly half of these deaths are in newborns, a figure that will rise as the mortality rate for older infants continues to fall.

Children in sub-Saharan Africa are more than 14 times more likely to die before the age of 5 than children in Europe and North America.. For older children aged 5 to 9 years, injuries including road traffic injuries, drowning, burns and falls remain among the top causes of death and lifelong disability.