Achieving the Millennium Development Goal for Under-Five Mortality in Bangladesh: Current Status and Lessons for Issues and Challenges for Further Improvements (Review Article) (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION One hundred eighty-nine countries attending the United Nations Millennium Summit signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000 to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger, and diseases among one billion people in the world, who subsist barely on anything (1). This project set a deadline of 2015 to achieve eight goals, known as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of the goals was to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 from 1990. Evidence suggests that, region-wise, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America/Caribbean countries, and Europe are on track to achieve the MDG 4 but South Asia was described as still having high mortality, and the target of MDG 4 may not be met by 2015 (2). The Government of Bangladesh and the United Nations Country Team in Bangladesh expressed concerns at the slowing of the pace in the decline of mortality of children aged less than five years (under-five mortality) (3). The most recent nationally-representative data in Bangladesh indicate that Bangladesh has made significant improvements in reducing the child mortality rate, although it is far below the MDG target. Child mortality per 1,000 livebirths came down from 94 in 1990 to 52 in 2007 (4); however, the decline has been faster in urban areas than in rural areas (5).