UNICEF Report: the State of the World’s Children 2014 in Numbers: Every Child Counts – Revealing disparities, advancing children’s rights.
February 2014
Interactive website: http://www.unicef.org/sowc2014/numbers/

Excerpt from media release
“…Tremendous progress has been made since the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted in 1989 and in the run up to the culmination of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. The new report shows that:
:: Some 90 million children who would have died before reaching the age of 5 if child mortality rates had stuck at their 1990 level have, instead, lived. In large measure, this is because of progress in delivering immunizations, health, and water and sanitation services.
:: Improvements in nutrition have led to a 37 per cent drop in stunting since 1990.
:: Primary school enrolment has increased, even in the least developed countries: Whereas in 1990 only 53 in 100 children in those countries gained school admission, by 2011 the number had improved to 81 in 100.
Even so, the statistics in the report, titled Every Child Counts: Revealing disparities, advancing children’s rights, also bear witness to ongoing violations of children’s rights:
:: Some 6.6 million children under 5 years of age died in 2012, mostly from preventable causes, in violation of their fundamental right to survive and develop.
:: Fifteen per cent of the world’s children are put to work that compromises their right to protection from economic exploitation and infringes on their right to learn and play.
:: Eleven per cent of girls are married before they turn 15, jeopardizing their rights to health, education and protection.
Data also reveal gaps and inequities, showing the gains of development are unevenly distributed:
:: The world’s poorest children are nearly three (2.7) times less likely than the richest ones to have a skilled attendant at their birth, leaving them and their mothers at increased risk of birth-related complications.
:: In The Niger, all urban households but only 39 per cent of rural households have access to safe drinking water.
:: In Chad, for every 100 boys who enter secondary school, only 44 girls do – leaving them without an education and without protections and services that schools can provide.
The report notes that “being counted makes children visible, and this act of recognition makes it possible to address their needs and advance their rights.” It adds that innovations in data collection, analysis and dissemination are making it possible to disaggregate data by such factors as location, wealth, sex, and ethnic or disability status, to include children who have been excluded or overlooked by broad averages….