Bill Gates
Two years ago, I wrote a blog post on Gates Notes about one of the most important and impressive things humanity has ever done: Between 1990 and 2019, we cut child mortality around the world by more than half. But that was only the first part of the story. Now, I’m sharing the second part—how we can do it again by 2040 and save millions of children’s lives in the process—and I’m excited for you to read it. Child mortality is tough to talk or even think about. There’s no greater tragedy. But buried in the numbers of preventable childhood deaths—still far too high—is also a story of remarkable progress and hope. Because when the world came together and worked toward a shared goal, vaccines and medicines were developed and distributed. Life-saving tools were created. What was successful in one country was put into action in many others. Preventable illnesses were, well, prevented. And children who might have died in their first week of life lived to celebrate their fifth birthdays, and then onto adulthood. Today, thanks to everything we’ve learned about child and maternal health over the past decade, a whole host of interventions exist to cut child mortality in half once again—and help even more kids survive and thrive. You can read more about what it will take—part two of this story—on Gates Notes now. As always, thanks for being an Insider. P.S. If you want to put names and faces to this surprisingly hopeful story, I encourage you to watch this video about three generations of Ethiopian women—a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter—whose lives and opportunities have all been shaped by the progress made on child mortality during their lifetimes.
