From the Economist:
THE frequent death of children before their fifth birthday is both a disaster for their parents and one of the most reliable indicators of country-wide poverty. … One of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals requires that by 2015, developing countries should reduce their under-five mortality rate to one-third of where it stood in 1990. Just 17 countries had met that target in 2010; notable among them were Brazil, Egypt and Turkey. While China, with 13% of the world’s 636m children under five, is on course to meet the goal by 2015, it will be among only an additional 23 countries to do so, leaving 101 countries set to miss the target.
Globally maternal deaths are decreasing. The rate at which mothers die during childbirth has been reduced by about 40% since 1980, but this is not enough to meet the Millennium Development goal of reducing maternal mortality 75% from 1990 levels by 2015. However, 23 countries are on track on meet this goal.
Afghanistan is the worst country, with a high death rate and little improvement – 1,575 women die for every 100,000 live births, while Italy has only 4 deaths per 100,000. The figures below showing the global trend, the rate in countries, and changes in the rate are from article by Margaret Hogan and others Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980—2008: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5 (doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61345-8):
Navigating the surprises of the anthropocene