Millions of world's poorest children left behind despite global progress: Unicef

KUALA LUMPUR: The global community will fail millions of children if it does not focus on the most disadvantaged in its new 15-year development roadmap, warned the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) today.
Unicef's final report on the children-related Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) titled, "Progress for Children: Beyond Averages", states that despite significant achievements, unequal opportunities have left millions of children living in poverty, dying before they turn five, or without schooling and suffering chronic malnutrition.
"The MDGs helped the world realise tremendous progress for children, but they also show us how many children we are leaving behind.
"The lives and future of the most disadvantaged children matter – not only for their own sake, but for the sake of their families, communities and societies," Unicef executive director Anthony Lake was quoted as saying in a statement, issued to Bernama.
The 2015 report also highlights bad news in which progress still eludes the nearly six million children who die every year before their fifth birthday, the 289,000 women who die every year while giving birth and the 58 million children who do not go to primary school.

Unicef, in the statement, also noted that disparities within countries had left children from poor households twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday, and far less likely to achieve minimum reading standards than children from the richest households.
Continued failure to reach these children could have dramatic consequences, it said.
Since 2000, the MDGs have helped drive tremendous progress for children, proving how much can be achieved by galvanising global efforts around concrete, common goals.
This blueprint of Unicef's collective priorities was drawn up following the largest gathering of world leaders from 189 member states of the United Nations (UN), for the Millennium Summit at the UN headquarters in New York.
The eight MDG objectives and targets expected to be achieved by the end of this year comprise eliminating extreme poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality, achieving universal primary education and fighting HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Unicef hopes that as the world leaders prepare to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the most disadvantaged children should be at the heart of new goals and targets.
The statement said that better data collection and disaggregation, stronger local health, education and social protection systems and smarter investments tailored could help more children to survive and thrive for short and long-term benefits.
"The SDGs present an opportunity to apply the lessons we have learned and reach the children in greatest need, and shame on us if we don't, for greater equity in opportunity for today's children means less inequality and more global progress tomorrow," Lake remarked.
The SDGs, expected to be announced in September this year, are a proposed set of targets that will replace the MDGs once they expire in 2015.
Unicef said that at the current rate of progress, it was estimated that 68 million more children under five would die from mostly preventable causes by 2030, while approximately 119 million children would still be chronically malnourished in 2030.

It added that half a billion people would still be defecating in the open, posing serious risks to children's health in 2030, and it would take almost 100 years for all girls from sub-Saharan Africa's poorest families to complete their lower secondary education.
However, notable successes since 1990 were also reported which include under-five mortality drop by more than half, from 90 per 1,000 live births to 43 per 1,000 live births, while underweight and chronic malnutrition among children under five decreased by 42% and 41%, respectively.
Maternal mortality decreased by 45% and some 2.6 billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources, Unicef said. – Bernama