Overseas aid is emerging as an election issue in Australia. This week has seen a tabloid attack/exposé on government expenditure and the start of a series of electoral forums on ending poverty. More of that in later posts. First some good news:

ASHLEY HALL: When world leaders came together in 2000, they agreed to eight specific Millennium Development Goals to tackle extreme poverty by 2015. Among them was the promise to cut by two-thirds the child mortality rate recorded in 1990. A new study published in the Lancet has found the millennium strategies are working. It says four-point-two million fewer children under five will die this year than in 1990. One of the report's co-authors, Professor Alan Lopez from the University of Queensland says the researchers didn't expect to see such a big drop.

ALAN LOPEZ: What it means is that it is certainly a surprise. We had not expected to see changes in child mortality in the last decade or so at all in sub-Saharan Africa and now we are seeing declines in childhood mortality of the order of two to two-and-a-half per cent a year in the rate. Now that is a very, very significant drop.

Child mortality rates in decline (ABC Radio National AM Program 25 May 2010)

Audio of Alan Lopez interview: Listen to MP3 of this story

Among the Findings

Worldwide mortality in children younger than 5 years has dropped from 11·9 million deaths in 1990 to 7·7 million deaths in 2010, consisting of 3·1 million neonatal deaths, 2·3 million postneonatal deaths, and 2·3 million childhood deaths (deaths in children aged 1—4 years). The full text of the study is available.

The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. (Feature image from the Foundation photo gallery).