Levels & Trends in Child Mortality

United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), Report 2025

In 2024, the world lost an estimated 4.9 million children before their fifth birthday, alongside 2.1 million deaths among older children, adolescents and youth. Despite decades of progress, the pace of mortality reduction is slowing, and in some places stalling, with the heaviest burdens falling on sub‑Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.

March 17 2026 – For the first time, the United Nations Inter‑agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) has produced fully synchronized cause‑of‑death estimates, showing what children are dying from at different ages. This offers the strongest evidence yet on where urgent action is needed most, and which life‑saving interventions will have the greatest impact.

This year’s combined release of UN IGME’s all‑cause mortality estimates and the CA CODE group’s cause‑specific estimates provides the most comprehensive evidence base to date. Yet, major data gaps persist, particularly in the highest‑burden countries. Closing these gaps is critical to targeting interventions effectively and accelerating progress toward ending preventable child deaths everywhere.

The tools to end these deaths already exist, but they must be deployed at far greater scale and speed. As conflict, climate shocks, fragile health systems and funding pressures intensify, the window to protect millions of young lives is narrowing.

This year’s report calls for renewed commitment, targeted investments, and accelerated action to ensure that every child, everywhere, survives and thrives.

Understanding what children are dying from

Child mortality patterns vary sharply by age. Among newborns, deaths are largely caused by prematurity, complications during labour, and neonatal infections. These are conditions that can be dramatically reduced through quality antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care, including skilled birth attendance, essential newborn care, and dedicated support for small and sick newborns.

Preventable infectious diseases continue to take millions of young lives. For children aged 1–59 months, pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria remain leading killers, often intensified by malnutrition. For the first time, the report estimates deaths directly caused by severe acute malnutrition (SAM), finding that more than 100,000 children aged 1-59 months died from it in 2024. In settings where early childhood survival has improved, congenital anomalies make up a growing share of under‑five deaths.

Beyond age five, older children, adolescents and youth face a different set of risks: a mix of infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases, injuries, and mental‑health‑related causes. These patterns underscore the need for a life‑course approach that protects health and well‑being through childhood, adolescence and into young adulthood.

Where a child grows up still shapes their chance of survival

Child deaths are not evenly distributed. In many countries, inequities based on geography, income, maternal education, access to water and sanitation, and broader social protections shape a child’s chances of survival. Fragile and conflict affected settings face the steepest challenges, with limited access to essential health services and greater exposure to overlapping risks.

Yet even with these challenges, the global evidence is clear: where targeted investments have been made, child mortality has fallen sharply. But where health systems are fragile or under resourced, progress remains slow or has stalled entirely.

Hard‑won progress to reduce child mortality must be sustained

Since 1990, the world has made remarkable progress: the under five mortality rate has fallen by about 60 per cent, and neonatal mortality by 45 per cent, saving millions of young lives. These gains reflect decades of investment in immunization, essential health services, newborn care, nutrition support and the integrated management of childhood illnesses.

However, this momentum is slowing. While mortality levels today are far lower than in past decades, the current rate of decline means that 27.3 million under five deaths are projected between 2025 and 2030 — nearly 13 million of which will occur in the neonatal period. These deaths remain concentrated in the same regions that continue to face the steepest barriers to quality health services: sub Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.

WUNRN

UNICEF Children in Crisis Website: Humanitarian Aid for Children in Crisis | UNICEF USA

Levels and trends in child mortality – UNICEF DATA

Graphs and Charts are detailed on this website.