Advancing Child Survival

The past decade has witnessed a concentrated global effort to improve health, development, economic and environmental conditions around the world. Through a series of international conferences, treaties and initiatives, world leaders, governments, donor agencies and the international development world have set targets, goals, and objectives aimed at reducing child and maternal mortality, halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, insuring financing for these as well as other development needs, and agreeing to a global plan of action for sustainable development.

The United States plays an integral role in the effort to improve child health and survival in the developing world and is committed to reaching the internationally agreed goal of reducing the mortality rate among children under five by two-thirds by 2015.

International health programs for children through the U.S. Agency for International (USAID) are vital to international development and serve as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign assistance. Investing in the health of the world's population contributes to global economic development, reduction in poverty, sustainable environment and regional security.

Since 1985, when the U.S. Congress created the Child Survival Program, USAID has obligated more than $5 billion in support of initiatives in child survival, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. The Agency has provided more than $2.5 billion in assistance to child survival programs in developing countries that support maternal and child immunization, prevention and treatment of respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, and malaria - the major killer diseases of infants and children - breastfeeding and complementary feeding, micronutrient supplementation and fortification, and water and sanitation. These efforts have contributed to the reduction of mortality rates, for children under the age 5, by an estimated 14 percent since 1990. USAID also helped create many of today's life saving interventions and technologies used to prevent and treat childhood diseases. Oral Rehydation Therapy (ORT), Vitamin A, vaccines such as Hepatitis B and insecticide treated bednets, save millions of lives each year.

Despite this ten and a half million children will die this year – a majority from easily preventable causes such as diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria and malnutrition. A recent series on child survival published in The Lancet concluded that two-thirds of 10 million child deaths could be prevented with existing knowledge and known treatments for diarrheal disease, malaria, pneumonia, and neonatal causes.

USAID is directing global attention and action on the unfinished child survival agenda by focusing on coordinated action among international partners and using existing resources, funding and coordination mechanisms more efficiently and effectively. Following The Lancet series USAID, CIDA, and the Ministry of Health of Uganda hosted an "Advancing Child Survival" meeting prior to the G-7 gathering in Ottawa to refocus global attention on child survival.

The result was a multi-agency "Child Survival Working Group" hereafter called the Child Survival Partnership was created. Meeting participants agreed to:

1. increase attention paid to child survival within priority countries,
2. mobilize country and donor resources dedicated to child health, and
3. ultimately scale up known, effective child health interventions in those same priority countries.

USAID's Advancing Child Survival Key Facts