How many lives would be saved if Africa had other regions’ child mortality rates?

One of the starkest expressions of global inequality is a child’s chance of survival. In 2023, 2.84 million children in Africa died before reaching their fifth birthday, giving the continent the highest child mortality rate of any region (5.9%).

The chart above shows a simple hypothesis: how many more African children would reach the age of five if it had the same child mortality rates as other regions?

If conditions in Africa improved enough to match Asia’s current child mortality rate (2%), 1.9 million of these 2.84 million children would survive.

If the child mortality rate were to drop to the European rate (0.4%), then 2.64 million children would be saved each year.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “How many lives would be saved if Africa had other regions’ child mortality rates?” by Simon van Teutem, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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