Unless the world tackles inequity today, in 2030: million children will live 167in extreme poverty million children under age 5 69will die between 2016 and 2030 million children of primary 60school age will be out of school Why focus on equity now? as governments around the world consider how best to meet their commitment to achieve the Sustainable development Goals (SdGs) by 2030, the lessons of global efforts over the past 15 years are instructive. Progress achieved towards the Millennium development Goals (MdGs) between 2000 and 2015 demonstrated the power of national action, backed by international partnerships, to deliver transformative results. Children born today are significantly less likely to live in poverty than those born at the start of the new 2 millennium. They are over 40 per cent more likely to survive to their fifth birthday and more likely to be in school. Governments and communities around the world have rightly celebrated these advances. Yet in the midst of progress, millions of children continue to live – and die – in unconscionable conditions. in 2015, an estimated 5.9 million children died before reaching age 5, mostly as a result of diseases that can be readily and 3 affordably prevented and treated. Millions more children are still denied access to education simply because their parents are poor or from a stigmatized group, because they were born female, or because they are growing up in countries affected by conflict or chronic crises. and even though poverty is falling globally, nearly half of the world’s extreme poor are children, and many more experience multiple dimensions of poverty in their lives. in many cases, equity gaps have narrowed over the past 25 years. for example, in all regions, the poorest households experienced greater absolute declines in child mortality than the richest. four regions achieved gender parity in primary education.4 But in far too many other cases, overall progress did little to narrow deep and persistent disparities. Governments failed to track the equity gaps separating the most disadvantaged children from the rest of society. national averages marking The STaTe of The World’S Children 2016 3