lecture 9 power and child mortality

P o w e r a n d

child mortality

?Who are thebaby killers

What’s child mortality?1

Caused by chance?2

3 Caused by government?

4 Caused by global governance?

1What is

child mortality?

U5MR

Probability of dying between birth and five years of age, per

1,000 live

births

Child survival is one of the most sensitive indicators of human welfare, the comparative health of nations and the effectiveness of public policy

UNDP 2005: 27

“

Some

numbers…

1 in

143Mortality rate in wealthier nations

1 in 10Mortality rate in

low income countries

children under the age of five died, 2011

daily child mortality

rate 2011

% of deaths in first 28 days of life.

Number who could have been saved

4.4 million

4319,000

6.9 million

India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and China. 50%

India

35

%+

Nigeria

Proximate causes of

child deaths

Deaths from

malaria

800 thousand

malariaAfrican child deaths from

1 per m

inute

13million deaths from

infectious diseases

Deaths from

measles

1MILLION

every year

DEATHS FROM MEASLES-RELATED COMPLICATIONS PER DAY

380

452

2011Human

1

42,007Soldier and Civilians

158,000Measles

800,000Malaria

1,855,000Diarrhoe

a

13,012,444Infectious Diseases

1 pneumonia 18%

2 preterm complications 14%

3 diarrhoea 11%

4 complications during birth 9%

5malaria 7%

underlying factor in about ONE-THIRD of

ALL CHILD DEATHS

Malnutrition

water-born disease kills 5,000 per day

www.sanitation-is-dignity.org/why_sanitation

1.8 million lives a

year

no single measure would do more to reduce disease and save lives in the developing world than clean water and sanitation provision

Annan 2000: 61.

760,000

Child deaths from diarrhoea

annually

Walker et al (2011):

$3.24cost per person to reduce by

92%global diarrhoea deaths

2Is itchance ?

Bad luck

FAMINE

Suggests no human causation

child mortality may be

act of GOD

agency

Absolves us all of responsibility and

3Is itgovernment ?

The birth of a child is a

Handwerker, W. Penn (1990) ‘Politics and Reproduction: A Window on Social Change’, In: Births and power, ed.

Handwerker, W. Penn, Westview: San Francisco, 1-38

POLITICAL EVENT

Western model

social contract

responsibility?Similar

economies often fried

limited capacity for needs assessment

underdeveloped infrastructure for distribution

colonial legacy

Europeans didn’t build railwaysso africans could visit

their friends

NGOS, INGOs

Helped by aid

But hampered by

big pharma

corruptionby

local to global

And by dictatorship

anddictatorships

4Is itglobal governance ?

?What’s

global governance

Response to globalization

institutionalised management of international change and continuity

Thousands of subnational, national and supranational bodies, civil society technologies

neutral and technocratic, non-ideological

a system of rules that – given the absence

of a central power – is carried out by a

diversity of actors on different levels

Beyer 2008

“

?No central

power

privatization

imf and wb conditionality

disciplinarity & punishment for non-conformity

rejection of challenges

deregulation

marketization

austerity everywhere

If MARKETS ‘solve’ child mortality

how will poor people

pay?

Basic Rights

Socially basic rights are the rights that serve as necessary conditions for the enjoyment of other rights.

E.g., the rights protecting access to basic needs to subsistence (food, security)

Conclusion

who

killsall the babies ?

Random chance of birth to parents with too few

resources

Corrupt governments with colonial legacies

global governance privileging liberal ways that marginalise the poorest

COMMISERATE

Jesse Prinz

It’s not enough to

with victims.

UPPITYWe should get