The Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME), led by the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization, released a 2010 year-end report on child mortality in 2009. The report describes progress on Millennium Development Goal 4 which calls for reducing the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. The study says that “Globally, the number of deaths among children under age five has fallen from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009.”

However, while “The rate of decline in under-five mortality has accelerated over 2000–2009 compared with the 1990s,” this is still is not enough to reach MDG 4, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Oceania. “The highest rates of child mortality continue to be in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 1 child in 8 dies before age five—nearly 20 times the average of 1 in 167 for developed regions.” The article explains that many children under five are dying because of pneumonia (18 percent of deaths) and diarrheal diseases (15 percent). “Globally, more than 1/3 of child deaths are attributable to undernutrition… [and] revitalizing efforts against pneumonia and diarrhea, while bolstering nutrition, could save millions of children.”

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Figures 8 and 9 from "Levels & Trends in Child Mortality" by IGME