A Promise Renewed: Child Survival Call to Action 2012 Summit
Hillary Clinton speaks at Child Survival Call to Action
Image via Georgetown University
“We are all here today with one vision – to make sure every child everywhere lives to see his or her 5th birthday, to eliminate preventable child death in a generation,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she opened the Child Survival Call to Action Conference held at Georgetown University (June 14-15, 2012). The conference, led by UNICEF and the governments of Ethiopia, India, and the United States, brought together more than 700 leaders and experts from 80 countries who vowed to take on a massive, but solvable problem. The goal is to close the gap in child mortality between rich and poor countries, a difference that Clinton describes as “shocking.” More specifically, experts aim to reduce the number of children dying under the age of five to 20 for every 1,000 live births by 2035. The current rate in many sub-Saharan African countries is 100 deaths for every 1,000 live births.
UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake, explained, “We have the tools, the treatments, and the technology to save millions of lives every year, and there is no excuse not to use them…The grand goal of preventing child deaths must be our common cause.”