A Year in Review
What does it cost to save the lives of Chi
ldren? Children around the world faced incredible challenges in 2012 as a result of natural disasters and violent conflict. These situations leave already vulnerable children in an even more vulnerable predicament, threatening their protection and survival. In the video below, UNICEF shares their collective effort to help vulnerable children around the world.
Although child mortality rates have been significantly reduced from 1990, 2012 was a year of renewal progress that called on all of us to act through A Promise Renewed. This is an effort to mobilize the world to achieve an ambitious, yet achievable goal – to end preventable child deaths. Every child should be given the opportunity to survive and thrive. “We are all here today with one vision, to make sure that every child everywhere lives to see his or her 5th birthday; to eliminate preventable child death in a generation,” says Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton.
We have reached a point in human history where we have the technologies and available knowledge to reach the world’s most vulnerable children with life-saving interventions. However, these very simple, highly effective and very low-cost interventions are still not reaching those that mostly need them. According to Oliver Sabot with the Clinton Health Access Initiation, hundreds of thousands of children and mothers can be saved by products that cost less than 50 cents. This is absolutely astounding and it once again raises the question, what does it cost to save a life?