Almost 9 million children die every year before the age of 5 — or nearly one child every three seconds. Just under 4 million of these children die within their first month, nearly 3 million of them die within the first week and nearly 2 million of them die on their first day of life.

These are just a few of the sobering statistics in a new report released last month by the international organization Save the Children titled "The Next Revolution: Giving Every Child the Chance to Survive." Although progress is being made — in 2006 the annual under-5 mortality fell below 10 million for the first time since record-keeping began and the figure dropped to 8.8 million last year — the international community must not allow its efforts to flag in the struggle to save children's lives.

Save the Children, an international organization, identifies three primary factors responsible for child mortality. First, a small number of "diseases and conditions" cause more than 90 percent of deaths in children under 5: pneumonia, measles, diarrhea, malaria, HIV/AIDS and a variety of neonatal conditions. Neonatal conditions, which include severe infections, asphyxia and premature births, are extremely troubling as they are responsible for 86 percent of newborn deaths. Most tragic is the fact that in nearly all cases the diseases and conditions responsible for child deaths will be preventable and treatable if proper care is available.

Second, there exist intermediate factors that make some children vulnerable to these diseases and medical conditions, including absence of essential health care, poor nutrition, contaminated water and unsanitary conditions, and inadequate maternal education.

Third, child deaths are not random events but rather, to a large extent, the outcome of governmental policy and political choices as well as political, environmental, cultural, economic, and social factors. The silver lining to this cloud is that positive efforts on the part of governments, the private sector and civil society can have a monumental impact.

To reduce the number of child deaths, Save the Children recommends an aggressive drive to make the following "interventions" available: skilled personnel to support mothers during childbirth; early postnatal care; prophylactic and curative treatment for diseases, nutrition support, financial aid and greater social protection programs. In addition, the underlying socio-economic causes of child mortality must be addressed.

To counter the pessimism that many people feel about the chances of improving the child mortality rate, Save the Children points to the record of developed countries in reducing their own child mortality rates in the 20th century. In 1900 the United Kingdom's infant mortality rate was 140 per 1,000 live births; today it is 4.8.

Save the Children notes that more than 60 countries have reduced their child mortality rate by 50 percent, and today only Afghanistan and Sierra Leone's infant mortality rates exceed 140.

Save the Children emphasizes that a major technological breakthrough isn't required to further reduce child mortality. Rather, the world needs to give greater priority to the nutrition and health of mothers and children on national and international agendas; expose false assumptions about child mortality in poor countries that lead to inaction and cynicism; publicize the successes of communities and countries; and highlight what the world loses from high child mortality rates.

The debunking of commonly believed myths is particularly vital. According to Save the Children, many people are cynical about the possibility of lowering child mortality, believing it would cost too much or accelerate population growth on an already crowded planet. Some are also convinced that efforts to improve children's health and nutrition will be undermined by corrupt or ineffective governments, or that there is little benefit in keeping children alive if all they face is a life of grinding poverty.

All of these assertions are false, says Save the Children: Poorer countries have demonstrated that they can reduce their child mortality rates. Corruption and poor governance are problems that can be surmounted. And with the right policies children in poor countries can grow up to become healthy, well-educated adults, who in turn can work to make their societies more productive and wealthier.

In 2000, a number of countries, including Japan, made a commitment to achieve Millennium Development Goal No. 4, which calls for a two-thirds reduction in the under-5 mortality rate between 1990 and 2015. Japan should allocate all available resources to help achieve this goal, including the wealth of experience it gained in the process of reducing its own first-year infant mortality rate from 150 per 1,000 births in 1900 to just 3.2 deaths per 1,000 births today.