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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