Attachment
Gates Package, p.542 · gates:exh:00182
Page text: p.542 · original PDF
- Date
- — (unknown precision)
- Type
- attachment · document
- Topics
- Vaccines
Still, many individual countries are on track to achieve this target. One of them is Ethiopia, which
used the MDGs to drive an overhaul of its primary health care system that has led to a dramatic
decline in childhood deaths.
Childhood Deaths Declining
A combination of vaccines, malaria prevention, and improved newborn health care has helped reduce
child mortality globally since 1990--progress that brings the world closer to achieving one of the eight
Millennium Development Goals.
Sg
Se
OP AP
PwSoo
=
a
ar os eee Sat gt
TTT
I ll
"90
'91
"92
'93
"94
'95
"96
'97
"98
"99
"00
"01
02 "03 04 '05
"06
"07
"08
"09
"10
"11
SOURCE: The World Bank
Global Goals, Local Change
I remember the disturbing images from Ethiopia of the 1980s when more than one
million people died in a famine that swept through the Horn of Africa. It was a tragedy brought
to the world's attention by the 1985 Live Aid concert and part of a long period of war, political
unrest, and instability for Ethiopians. Their country ranked near the bottom on nearly every key
health indicator, including child mortality.
About a decade ago that picture started to change--thanks in large part to a government goal
to bring primary health care to all Ethiopian citizens. When Ethiopia signed on to the MDGs in
2000, the country put hard numbers on its health ambitions. The concrete MDG goal of reducing
child mortality by two-thirds created a clear target for
success or failure. Ethiopia's commitment to the MDGs
attracted unprecedented amounts of donor money to
help improve its primary health care services.
Ethiopia found a successful model for achieving this
goal in the Indian state of Kerala, which had lowered
its child mortality rate and improved a host of other
health indicators, in part through a vast network of
community health care posts. This is one of the benefits
s
of measurement--the ability it gives government
leaders to make comparisons across countries, find
ae
:
Famine, war, and political unrest in Ethiopia
who's doing well, and then learn from the best. With
jj-p1acca hundred of thoueands
of people in the
help from Kerala representatives, Ethiopia launched
9806, sparking an outpouring of money and aid
its own community health program in 2004.
from around the world (Ethiopia, 1984-1985).