OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Every year, over 10 million children die across the world before reaching the age of five. Out of which South Asia alone accounts for 3.1 million deaths.

According to a latest report: Saving Children’s Lives brought by UK-based Save the Children, the average child mortality rate (child deaths per thousand live births) for South Asia stands at 83 as compared to six in the United Kingdom.

Especially in developing countries, children still remain unprotected to neo-natal conditions and killer diseases like malaria, diarrohea, measles, AIDS, etc.

The problem is further compounded by lack of hygienic sanitation, malnutrition, poverty, female illiteracy, bad governance, conflict and worsening environmental trends.

What are the reasons for such a poor track record on child survival and development?

One of the major hurdles in realising Millennium Development Goal 4, which aims to reduce global mortality under five by two-thirds between 1990-2015, is vast disparity in distribution of wealth and resource allocation within the countries.

The new Wealth and Survival Index carried out by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) shows how some countries are faring relatively better than others with respect to their national income levels.

South Asian scenario

India’s child mortality rate is 76 despite a robust economic growth. While Bangladesh with a lesser growth rate has a child mortality rate of 69.

After adopting the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy in 1998, Bangladesh has considerably improved its community-based services.

Training health workers, raising awareness about child and maternal health-related issues, support for female literacy, better case management techniques have led to improved outcomes in Bangladesh.

As a result of government and civil society initiatives on family planning, Bangladesh boasts of the highest percentage of women using contraception compared to any other less developed country.

We have seen in the case of South Asia that selected interventions have been quite productive. For example, Nepal has done extremely well in child immunisation and Bangladesh in treatment of diarrohea. Free and universal provision of health and education is an essential feature of social policy in Sri Lanka.

But while India may be shining as an Asian economic giant, it has not been able to achieve higher rates of child survival than any of its neighbours except Pakistan.

Due to entrenched gender and caste inequalities in the country, the poor find it hard to access health-care facilities. Moreover, within India, regional disparities are glaring. For instance, Orissa has an infant mortality rate of 96; while for Kerala it is only 14.

Moreover, even prosperous states like Punjab and Haryana are far behind in terms of child development.

What therefore matters is policy choices and level of social awareness and interventions made by individual governments. For instance, India’s annual defence spending last year was 2.5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP); whereas health accounted for an abysmal low at 0.2%.

Ironically, 80% of the health allocation in India is directed to urban areas, though an overwhelming majority of its population lives in rural areas.

One key contribution of the Millennium Campaign has been to highlight the interlinked nature of different sectoral development goals and the need to achieve uniform progress progress on all the MDGs, and the UNICEF’s report: The State of the World’s Children 2008 reiterates this. For that, it is necessary to link health, maternal and childcare, poverty, hunger, water and sanitation.

The issue is not only about how well the economy grows but also to ensure its children grow up healthy as well.