Health for all
UN plan aims to improve health standards and halt the spread of killer diseases such as AIDS, around the world.
The BBC's Uduak Amimo 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.
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.
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