A UNICEF report on child and maternal health, released Tuesday, criticized India and China for not doing enough in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education, gender equality and child-protection.
The report said that the success of global achievement of health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will depend largely on efforts of India and China to improve their existing standards of child health care.
Though the current economic boom has lifted a large number of people out of poverty in India and China, a total of 2.5 million child deaths were recorded in the two countries in 2006 alone, which accounts to a third of the total global child deaths that year.
The high death rate shows the failure of the public health policies in the two of the world's fastest-emerging economies, where the public health expenditure remains well below the world average on 5.1% of the GDP.
The report pointed out the immediate need to improve children's health standards in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific region where only 1.1% and 1.9% of the GDP are being spent on public health respectively.
They remain the only sub-region in the world where female life expectancy is lower than males' and where girls are more likely to be underweight than boys.
"Unless discrimination against women and girls is addressed as part of overall strategies to improve child and maternal health, high rates of maternal and child mortality will remain stubbornly entrenched," the report concluded.
Child survival is regarded by UNICEF as a key test of a nation's progress in human development and child rights, and has set a global target of reducing deaths of children under 5 by two-thirds by 2015.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.