In 2015, the world began working toward a new global development agenda, seeking to achieve, by 2030, new targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposed SDG target for child mortality aims to end, by 2030, preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 deaths per 1,000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 deaths per 1,000 live births.

In more than a quarter of all countries, urgent action is needed to accelerate reductions in child mortality to reach the SDG targets on ending preventable child deaths by 2030. Of 200 countries analysed, 134 already met the SDG target on under-five mortality, and 7 countries are expected to meet the target by 2030, if current trends continue. Efforts to accelerate progress need to be scaled up in the remaining 59 countries— roughly three quarters of which are in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa—to meet the SDG target on under-five mortality by 2030. Of these 59 countries, 43 countries will need to more than double their current rate of progress or reverse a recent increasing trend to achieve the SDG target by 2030.

Even more countries are at risk of missing the SDG target on neonatal mortality than on under-five mortality. On current trends, 64 countries will need to accelerate progress to meet the neonatal mortality target by 2030, while 57 countries will need to more than double their current rate of decline or reverse a recent increasing trend to meet the target on time.

Achieving the SDG target on under-five mortality on time in countries that are at risk of missing the target would mean averting almost 9 million under-five deaths compared with continuing current trends. If current trends continue (i.e. the country-level trends from 2010 to 2022), about 35 million children under 5 years of age will die before 2030, half of them newborns. Well over half of these deaths – 61 per cent – will take place in Sub-Saharan Africa (21 million), with another 23 per cent occurring in South Asia (8 million).