Thanks to continued investment in child survival worldwide, since 2000 child deaths have fallen by more than half and stillbirths by more than a third; by 2022 child deaths had fallen slightly below 5 million for the first time.

However, progress has slowed down and too many children still lose their lives to preventable causes. These are the findings of two new reports by the UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, of which Unicef is a member along with other organisations: “Standing Up for Stillbirth. Report 2024” and “Levels & Trends in Child Mortality. Report 2024”.

According to the two publications, the number of children who died globally before their fifth birthday dropped to 4.8 million in 2023 while stillbirths declined modestly, remaining around 1.9 million.

Decades of progress in child survival are now at risk because major donors have announced or signalled significant cuts to aid funding.

The reports emphasise, among other things, the need to ensure better access to quality maternal, newborn and child health care at all levels of the health care systems.

Both reports are available on Unicef website.

Further materials and news can be found on this site under Child mortality, accessible from the “Topics” navigation menu.