The good news of the decade Hans Rosling

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we are here today because United Nations

have defined goals for the progress of

countries they’re called Millennium

Development Goals and the reason I

really like these goals is that there

are eight of them and by specifying

eight different goals the United Nations

have said that there are so many things

needed to change in a country in order

to get a good life for people look here

you have to end poverty education gender

child and maternal health control

infections protect the environment and

get the good global links between

nations in every aspects from aid to

trade there’s a second reason I like

these Development Goals and that is

because each and every one is measured

take child mortality the aim here is to

reduce child mortality with two thirds

from 1990 to 2050 that’s a 4% reduction

per year and this with measuring that’s

what make the difference between

political talking like this and really

going for the important thing a better

life for people and what I’m so happy

about with this is that we have already

documented that there are many countries

in Asia in Middle East in Latin America

and East Europe that is reducing with

this rate and even my T Brazil is going

down with 5% per year and Turkey with 7%

per year so there’s good news but then I

hear people saying there is no progress

in Africa and there’s not even

statistics in Africa to know what is

happening I’ll prove them wrong on both

points come with me to the wonderful

world of statistic I bring you to the

webpage child mortality dot or you know

where you can bag deaths in children

below five years of age for all

countries it’s done by UN specialists

you know and I will take Kenya as an

example here you see the data don’t

panic now don’t panic you know I’ll help

you through this it looks you know nasty

like in in in college when you did like

statistics man but

first thing when you see dots like this

you have to ask yourself from where do

the date that come what is the origin of

the data is it so that in Kenya there

are doctors and other specialists who

write the death certificate at the death

of a child and it’s sent to the

Statistical Office no low-income

countries like Kenya still don’t have

that level of organization it exists but

it’s not complete because so many deaths

occur in the home with the family and

it’s not registered so what we rely on

is not incomplete system we have

interviews we have surveys and in this

is highly professional female

interviewers who sit down for one hour

with a woman and Oscar about birth

history how many children did you have

order you’re alive if they died at what

age and what year and then this is done

in a representative sample of thousands

of women in the country and put together

in what you used to be called a

demographic Health Survey report but

these surveys are costly so they can

only be done with three to five years

interval but they have good quality so

this is this is a limitation and all

these colored lines here are results

each color is one serving but that’s too

complicated for today so I’ll simplified

for you and I give you one average point

for each survey this was 1977 1988 1992

97 and 2002 and when when the expert in

the UN have got these service in place

in their database then they use advanced

mathematical formulas to produce a trend

line and trend line and the trend line

looks like this see here is the best fit

they can get of this point but watch out

they continue the line beyond the last

point out into nothing and they

estimated that 2008 Kenya had a child

mortality of 128 and I was sad because

we could see this this reversal in Kenya

with an increased child mortality in the

90s it was so tragic but in June I got

the mail in my inbox from demographic

Health Survey and it showed good

news from Kenya I was so happy this was

the estimate of the new survey then it

just took another three months for you

and to get it into their server and on

Friday we got the new trend line it was

down here

isn’t it nice isn’t it nice yeah I was

actually on Friday sitting in front of

my computer and I saw that the death

rate fall from 128 to 84 yes that

morning you know so we celebrated but

now when you have this trend line how do

we measure progress I’m going into some

details here because you n do it like

this they start 1992 they measure to

2009 they say 0.9% no progress that’s

unfair as a professor I think I have the

right to propose something differently I

would say at least do this ten years is

enough to follow the trend it’s to two

surveys and you can see what’s happening

now they have 2.4 percent had I been in

the Ministry of Health in Kenya I may

have joined these two points so what I’m

telling you is that we know the child

mortality we have a decent trend it

coming into some tricky things then when

we are measuring MDGs and the reason

here for Africa is especially important

because 90s was a bad decade not only in

Kenya but across Africa the HIV epidemic

peak that was resistant for the old

malaria drugs until we got the new drugs

we got late to the mosquito netting and

there were socio-economic problems which

are now being solved at the much better

scale so look at the average here this

is the average for all of sub-saharan

Africa and UN says it’s a reduction with

1.8 percent now this sounds a little

theoretical but it’s not so

theoretically you know these economists

they love money they want more and more

of it they want it to grow so they

calculate the percent annual growth rate

of economy we in public health we hate

child death so we want less and less and

less of child deaths so we we calculate

the percent reduction per year but it’s

sort of the same percentage if your

economy grow with 4% you ought to reduce

child mortality with 4% if it’s used

well and people are really involved and

can get the use of the resources in the

way they want so so is this fair now to

measure this over 19 years and

economists would never do that I have

just divided into two period in the 90s

only 1.2 percent only 1.2 percent

whereas now second gear is like Africa

had first gear

now they go into second gear but even

this is not a fair representation of

Africa because it’s an average it’s an

average speed of reduction in Africa and

look here when I take you into my bubble

graphs still here child F per 1000 on

that axis here we have year and I’m now

giving you a wider picture than the MDG

I start 50 years ago when Africa

celebrated independence in most

countries I give you Congo which was

high Ghana lower and Kenya even lower

and what has happened over the years

since there here we go you can see with

independence literacy improved you know

and vaccinations started smallpox was

eradicated hygiene was improved and

things got better but then in the

eighties watch out here Congo got into

civil war and they leveled off fear

Ghana got very help fast this was the

backlash in Kenya and go on a bypass but

then Kenyan gonna go down together

still the standstill in Congo that’s why

we are today you can see it doesn’t make

sense to make an average of this serie

improvement and this very fast

improvement time has come to stop

thinking about sub-saharan Africa as one

place that their countries are so

different and they married to be

recognized in the same way as we don’t

talk about Europe as one place I can

tell you that the economy in Greece and

Sweden are very different everyone knows

that and they are judged each country on

how they are doing you know so so let me

show the why the picture my country

Sweden 1800 we were up there what the

strange personality disorder we must

have counting the children so

meticulously in spite of a high child

death rate it’s very strange it’s sort

of embarrassing but we had that habit in

Sweden you know that we counted all the

child that’s even if we didn’t do

anything about it

and then you see these are famine years

this was bad years and people got fed up

with freedom my ancestors moved to the

United States you know and eventually

soon they started to get better and

better here and here we got better

education and we got health service and

child mortality came though we never had

a war Sweden was in peace all this time

but look the rate of lowering in Sweden

was not fast Sweden achieved a low child

mortality because we started early

we had primary school actually starting

1842 and then you get that wonderful

effect when we got female literacy one

generation later you have to realise

that the investments we do in progress

for long term investments is not about

just five years it’s long term

investments and and and Sweden never

reach Millennium Development Goal rate

3.1 percent when I calculate so we are

off track that was Sweden is but you

don’t talk about it so much you know we

want others to be better than we were

and indeed others have been better let

me show you Thailand see what a success

story in Thailand from the 1960s how

they went down here and reached almost

the same child mortality levels of

Sweden and I’ll give you another story

Egypt the most hidden glorious success

in public health he just was up here

1960 higher than Congo the Nile Delta

was a misery for children with diarrheal

disease you know and and malaria and a

lot of problem and then they got the

Aswan Dam they got electricity in the

homes the increased education and they

got primary health care and down they

went you know and they got safer water

they eradicated malaria and isn’t it a

success story Millennium Development

Goal rates for child mortality is fully

possible and the good thing is that

Ghana today is going with the same rate

as Egypt did as it fastest you know

Kenya is now speeding up here we have a

problem we have a severe problem in

countries which are at a standstill now

let me now bring you to a wider picture

a wider picture of child mortality I’m

going to show you the relation between

child mortality on this axis here this

here is child mortality and here I have

the family size the relation between

child mortality and family size one two

three four children per woman six seven

eight children per woman this is once

again 1960 50 years ago each bubble is a

country the color you can see the

continent the dark blue here is

sub-saharan Africa you know and the size

of the bubble is the population and

these are the so called developing

countries they had high or very high

child mortality and family size six to

eight and and and the ones over there

they were the so called Western

countries they had low child mortality

and small families what has happened

what I want you now is to see with your

own eyes the relation between falling

child mortality and decrease in family

size I just want not have any ruby has

to see that for yourself this is what

happened now I start the world here we

come down with their educational

smallpox better education you know

health service it got on there China

comes Indian to the Western box here you

know and here Brazil is in the west of

all India’s approach' the first African

countries coming into the Western ball

and we get a lot of new neighbors

welcome to a decent life come on we want

everyone down here this is the vision we

have isn’t it and look now the African

the first African countries here are

coming in there we are today there is no

such thing as a Western world and

developing world this is the this is the

report from UN which came out on Friday

it’s very good levels and Friends and

child mortality except this page this

page is very bad it’s the categorization

of countries it labels developing

countries I can read from the listed

developing countries Republic of Korea

South Korea now they get some some how

can they be developing countries they

have here Singapore that the lowest

child mortality in the world is

Singapore they bypass Sweden and five

years ago and they are label developing

country they have here guitar it’s a

richest country in the world with

aljazeera

how the heck could they be developing

this is crap the rest there is good the

rest is good we have to have a modern

concept which fit to the data you know

and we have to realize that we are all

going to live into this down to here

what is the importance now with the

relations here look even if we look in

Africa these are the African countries

you can clearly see the relation with

falling child mortality and decreasing

family size even within Africa it’s very

clear that this is what happens and a

very important piece of research came

out on Friday from the Institute of

Health metrics and evaluation in Seattle

showing that almost 50% of the fallen

child mortality can be attributed to

female education that is when we got get

girls in school we will get an impact 15

to 20 years later which is a secular

trend which is very strong that’s why we

must have that long-term perspective but

we must measure the impact over ten

years period it’s fully possible to get

child mortality down in all of these

countries and to get them down into the

corner why we all would like to live

together and of course lowering child

mortality is a matter or actor most

important from humanitarian aspects it’s

a decent life for children we are

talking about but it is also a strategic

investment in the future of all mankind

because it’s about the environment we

will not be able to manage the

environment and avoid the terrible

climate crisis if we don’t stabilize the

world population let’s be clear about

that

and the way to do that that is to get

child mortality down get access to

family planning and behind that a drive

of female education and that is fully

possible let’s do it thank you very much

you

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