 How the New International Goal for Child Mortality is Unfair to Sub-Saharan Africa (Again)Simon Lange and Stephan Klasen World Development, 2017, vol. 90, issue C, 128-146 Abstract: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include level-end goals for both under-five and neonatal mortality to be obtained by 2030: no more than 25 and 12 deaths per 1,000 births, respectively. Recent accelerations in the rate of reduction in under-five mortality have been cited as a cause for optimism. In this paper, we show that changes in mortality rates are subject to mean reversion. Hence, high rates observed recently for Sub-Saharan Africa make for an overly optimistic estimate of future reductions. Taking this into account in projecting mortality rates until 2030, we find that only very few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are likely to attain the new targets while a majority of countries elsewhere are likely to attain the target or have done so already. We also show that while MDG4 has been rightly criticized as ‘unfair’ to Sub-Saharan Africa in the past, a relative target may have been more appropriate today and would be relevant for all countries. We also offer a discussion of likely challenges the region faces in making further inroads against preventable deaths. Keywords: MDGs; SDGs; under-five mortality; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:90:y:2017:i:c:p:128-146 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.09.002 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
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