Reducing Child Mortality

Although Nepal has expressed its commitment to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, the performance is lackluster, and the goals are unlikely to be met within the deadline. However, Nepal has achieved progress in the area of reducing child mortality. Statistics show that Nepal is close to achieving the goal on reducing child mortality. Nepal’s success in saving the new born babies has set a unique example in the world for which the Himalayan Republic has been appreciated at the international level.

There are a number of reasons why Nepal achieved tremendous success in this sector. Firstly, Nepal remained adequately sensitive about its commitment made at the international level. Ever since it expressed commitment to achieving the MDGs by 2015, Nepal designed policies and programmes accordingly. However, designing policies and programmes alone does not serve the purpose. What is needed is their sincere and effective implementation to ensure that the targetted groups benefit. On the issue of reducing child mortality, the government has launched a massive awareness campaign, which has really yielded fruit.

Nepal used to be one of those countries with a high child mortality rate. The main reason for the high child mortality is the lack of awareness about public health among the people, unsafe delivery, malnutrition and lack of access to public health at times of need. In order to reduce child mortality, the government has launched a nationwide immunisation campaign which has saved millions of children from several easily preventable diseases. The other programme is the national nutrition scheme. Similarly, the government’s safe motherhood scheme has also saved the lives of many mothers and their new born babies. The incentive announced by the government has encouraged many pregnant women to seek the advice and help of medical workers, which has also helped save new born babies. The government had also brought about a new policy in the health sector. Although Nepal faces a resource crunch, this has not deterred it from pursuing its goal of reducing child mortality. Several donor countries and agencies have come up with generous support to realise Nepal’s goal in reducing child mortality completely. Despite the progress, however, there is still no room for complacency, as we still have to go a long way in completely eradicating child mortality.