MDGs off track: 17.5 million children have died waiting for change

A briefing on the progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) released by Save the Children, UK, reveals that all MDGs are off course and the majority of goals are unlikely to be met by 2015. Since the G8 conference at Gleneagles nearly two years ago, 17.5 million children have died waiting for change to come. Where progress has been made, it is not universal: sub-Saharan Africa lags far behind the rest of the world. Ninety per cent of all child deaths occur in only 42 countries, 39 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.

The briefing, Off Track and Running Out of Time, examines how close the world is to achieving the MDGs as the halfway point approaches. It focuses on MDGs that affect children: MDG 1 (eradicate extreme poverty and hunger); MDG 2 (achieve universal primary education); MDG 4 (reduce mortality rates by two thirds among children under five); and MDG 8 (develop a global partnership for development). Save the Children is calling on G8 countries this year to back developing countries to help build healthcare services and end the injustice of children and their families facing unpayable bills to go to the doctor, and to dramatically reform aid to make it work for poor countries. Aid should be predictable and untied, and all aid must be targeted at the world's poorest children.

Matt Phillips, Head of Campaigns at Save the Children, says, "It's an outrage that all the optimism of the new Millennium has turned into so little progress for children. There are rays of hope like Zambia making healthcare free and the massive public mandate for action to make poverty history. But to turn this round we need a lot more urgency and concrete action from world leaders - especially Europe and the G8 - to tackle extreme poverty."