Millennium Development Goals

World Health Statistics 2013 contains WHO’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets.
This year, it also includes highlight summaries on the topics of reducing the gaps between the world’s most-advantaged and least-advantaged countries, and on current trends in official development assistance (ODA) for health.

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to national AIDS programmes and partners actively involved in the country response to AIDS on use of core indicators to measure and report on the national response.

Poverty and gender inequality, in addition to the lack of access to education, increase vulnerability to HIV infection. This is one of the main messages of the Gender Equality, HIV and Education booklet recently produced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

While donor funding for health in low and middle-income countries rose significantly in the last decade, the era of rapid growth has come to an end. Health increased as a share of Official Development Assistance (ODA) during the early part of the past decade, largely spurred on by the creation of several new funding initiatives and mechanisms such as The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). However, this share has remained essentially flat in recent years, with year-to-year increases in donor funding for health peaking in 2007, and declining each year since.

The World Malaria Report 2012 summarizes information received from 104 malaria-endemic countries and other sources, and updates the analyses presented in the 2011 report. It highlights the progress made towards the global malaria targets set for 2015 and describes current challenges for global malaria control and elimination.

Report without country profiles is attached. For report with country profiles please visit : http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report_2012/en/index.html

The World Health Organization’s recommendations on optimizing the roles of health workers aim to help address critical health workforce shortages that slow down progress towards the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A more rational distribution of tasks and responsibilities among cadres of health workers can significantly improve both access and cost-effectiveness – for example by training and enabling ‘mid-level’ and ‘lay’ health workers to perform specific interventions otherwise provided only by cadres with longer (and sometimes more specialized) training.

Member States (MS) of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have made important progress in the last decades in reducing child mortality. However, with children under 18 years old representing 48% of the total population in the SADC region, child survival and development remains a key challenge. HIV, TB and malaria are important sources of morbidity and mortality in children. In 2009, there were more than 1 million children under the age of 15 years estimated to be living with HIV within SADC Member States, and in 2010 mother to child transmission of HIV (MTCT) resulted in more than 176,000 new infant infections in the region, with the percentage of MTCT across Member States ranging from 3 to 37%.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 presents new estimates of undernourishment based on a revised and improved methodology. The new estimates show that progress in reducing hunger during the past 20 years has been better than previously believed, and that, given renewed efforts, it may be possible to reach the MDG hunger target at the global level by 2015. However, the number of people suffering from chronic undernourishment is still unacceptably high, and eradication of hunger remains a major global challenge.

In its 2012 Report, the MDG Gap Task Force has had difficulty identifying areas of significant new progress towards delivering on commitments to the Global Partnership for Development, and for the first time there are signs of backsliding. The volume of official development assistance (ODA) fell for the first time in many years, obstacles to exports from developing countries are on the rise, and numerous developing countries are facing debt difficulties. With less than three years until 2015, there is no apparent commitment by donor Governments to reverse the trend in time, and it is likely that fewer MDGs will be reached in fewer countries as a result.