Foreword

Every year, nearly 11 million children die from preventable causes before reaching their fifth birthday, many of them during the first year of life. Millions more survive only to face diminished lives, unable to develop to their full potential.

This terrible toll in human suffering and forgone prosperity can be vastly reduced. Three fourths of all child visits to health facilities for medical care and 7 out of 10 childhood deaths result from just five causes: pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, malaria and malnutrition. The knowledge and capacity to prevent and treat all five causes exist.

Facts for Life aims to make life-saving knowledge easily available to everyone. It presents the most important facts that people have a right to know to prevent child deaths and diseases, and to protect women during pregnancy and childbirth. Its messages are simple, and people in every corner of the world can act on them.

Published by UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNAIDS, WFP and the World Bank, Facts for Life can save many lives – if its messages reach their intended audience. We urge all communicators – health workers, the media, government officials, non-governmental organizations, teachers, religious leaders, employers, trade unions, women's groups, community organizations and others – to join in a common cause to protect all children.

Carol Bellamy

Executive Director
United Nations Children's Fund

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland

Director-General
World Health Organization

Koichiro Matsuura

Director-General
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid

Executive Director
United Nations Population Fund

Mark Malloch Brown

Administrator
United Nations Development Programme

Dr. Peter Piot

Executive Director
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

Catherine Bertini

Executive Director
World Food Programme

James D. Wolfensohn

President
The World Bank