Health for All

Uduak Amimo asks if the world has the will, people and money to deliver basic good health for all.

She explores why the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals are not likely to lead to an improvement in the health of the world's poorest people.

Four of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals are directly about health. Their target is to improve maternal health, reduce child deaths by two-thirds, halt the spread of killer diseases such as AIDS, TB and malaria, and provide clean water within the next seven years.

However, these goals, designed to improve standards of health across the globe, seem unlikely to be met by 2015. In some places, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, conditions have got worse in the past 10 years.

Programme two

In the second programme of the series Health for All, Uduak Amimo joins the campaign to improve maternal health in some of the poorest nations in the world.

Five countries have reported increases in maternal deaths.

The proportion of children dying before the age of five has gone up, especially in countries which have experienced armed conflict, inadequate investment in health services and a high rate of HIV/AIDS.

Campaigners have been lobbying the G8 to get the topic on the agenda for next meeting in Japan.

They have succeeded in getting some coverage but are waiting to see just how much time will be spent on discussing maternal mortality.

HIV/AIDS has benefited from discussion at this high level and the concern with campaigners for maternal health is that the political will might wane and thus affect the good work that has been done.

Along with an increase in funding, the political will to achieve the reduction of infection does mean that governments may have to make controversial policies - such as supporting the giving of clean needles to drug users and promoting condom campaigns.