The 2030 sustainable development goal for health
BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g5295 (Published 26 August 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g5295All rapid responses
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Mankind memorializes time. We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. We also commemorate decades, centuries, and millennia. The end of the 19th century is called fin de siecle, and the end of the 20th century is called Y2K. With Y2K, we worried about our computers and expected a messiah. But instead, we got a witches' brew of terrorism, war, corruption, economic depression, and natural disasters. Noetically, poetically, and prophetically, the first two decades of the 21st century have unceremoniously ushered in the pandemonium millennium. Now, more than ever before, time must be realized, not just memorialized.
Competing interests: No competing interests
I wanted to thank Amanda Glassman, Director of Global Health Policy at the Center for Global Development (http://www.cgdev.org/expert/amanda-glassman), for a very helpful discussion about the SDGs prior to writing this editorial.
For readers who want to see more details of the modeling on enhanced health investment, the Commission on Investing in Health has just posted a "pre-print" of a paper called "Achieving a 'Grand Convergence' in Global Health: Modeling the Technical Inputs, Costs, and Impacts from 2016 to 2030," at:
http://www.globalhealth2035.org/sites/default/files/working-papers/grand...
The authors conclude that: "A grand convergence in health is within our reach. Over the next generation, investments to scale up proven health interventions and to develop innovative new tools can reduce mortality rates in even the poorest countries to levels comparable to those in wealthier nations. By 2030, the time horizon for the SDGs, an integrated investment plan for low-income and lower-middle-income countries could yield under-5 mortality rates comparable to upper-middle-income countries today, and set the stage for continued convergence with high-income countries. The stark disparities that exist in health today across countries and communities can be greatly reduced, creating more equal opportunities for survival and well-being everywhere."
The modeling suggests that by 2030 low-income countries (LICs) could achieve an under-5 mortality rate of 27 per 1,000 live births and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) a rate of 13 per 1,000. So, across LICs and LMICs as a whole, using a simple mean, a rate of about 20 per 1,000 seems feasible. This is in line with the rates today in several high-performing upper-middle-income countries (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT), e.g. Algeria, Colombia, and Panama.
Competing interests: GY declares that the Evidence to Policy initiative has received funding from donors and foundations that work to achieve the MDGs—the Global Fund, UNITAID, the UK Department for International Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. He is a member of the Commission on Investing in Health.
Re: The 2030 sustainable development goal for health
It is not the case that "In the year 2000, 193 countries adopted the millennium development goals (MDGs)".
Like other similar statements, this gives the impression that leaders only committed themselves to achieving the generally easier 1990-baseline targets. In fact the baseline for the Millennium Declaration, which leaders reaffirmed in 2005 and 2013, is 2000.
Evidence: ungoals.org
For other relevant BMJ content:
https://mobile.twitter.com/MDGScandal/status/638745854241804288?p=v
I call for remedy in good time for the UN Summit of later in September 2015.
Competing interests: No competing interests