VOA常速英语2008年-Survive to Five Campaign Aims to Reduce Infant

By Peter Heinlein
Addis Ababa
09 March 2008

The charity Save the Children USA is starting a campaign to dramatically decrease the number of children who die before the age of five. VOA's Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports the campaign will focus on seven countries, four in Africa and three in South Asia.

The program is called Survive to Five.

The idea behind it is simple. Despite great strides in preventing child mortality in the 1990s, 10 million children under five die every year. Every fifth death in the world is a child under five. Something must be done.

Facing statistics like these, the staff of Save the Children USA set about to design a counter strategy. It involves increasing access to community health care workers; persuading governments, both donors² and developing nations, to give higher priority to spending on maternal³ and child health; and mobilizing citizens to speak up on behalf of children.

Save the Children USA President Charlie MacCormack told an Addis Ababa news conference the organization came up with a two-pronged approach. One is to focus efforts on seven countries where infant mortality is the highest. The second is to persuade a dozen or so wealthy countries to double, triple, or in some cases quadruple their financial commitments for infant and child health care.

"The key on the donor¹ side is the G-8 plus Scandinavians who need to increase by $7 bilion that the rich countries are helping," said MacCormack. "Then we need to join with people and governments of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo where almost two-thirds of under-five mortality is located."

MacCoormack says the solution is not rocket science; all the tools needed to save the lives of millions of infants and young children each year are already in place.

"We are not inventing new science, new technologies, we do not need new vaccines," he said. "Everything we need to achieve this is there and affordable⁴. And the governments of Bangladesh and India and Pakistan and Ethiopia and Nigeria have to take the lead, but the donors have to fill in the gaps."

As for raising public awareness⁵, acclaimed⁶ actress and two-time Academy Award winner Jessica Lange came to Addis Ababa for the launch of the Survive to Five campaign. Lange says her interest in the campaign is as a mother of three children.

"What I would wish is for every mother and every father to experience the joy of watching your children grow up," said Jessica Lange. "I know from the work that Save the Children is doing is that this is not a reality for millions of parents around the globe. Today alone, 1,000 children under five will die here in Ethiopia. They will die of preventable causes, and no mother or father regardless of where they live or where the child is born should have to bear the grief of losing a child from a death that could have been prevented."

Save the Children USA estimates that of the 10 million children under five who die each year, 376,000 are in Ethiopia. Of those, 120,000 die at birth.

The United States, through its Agency for International Development, is the largest bilateral⁷ aid donor to most of the countries with the highest child mortality rates.

Overall, USAID will contribute more than $500 million in aid to Ethiopia this year.

1 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

2 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

4 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

5 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

6 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

7 bilateral   

adj.双方的，两边的，两侧的

参考例句：

• They have been negotiating a bilateral trade deal.他们一直在商谈一项双边贸易协定。
• There was a wide gap between the views of the two statesmen on the bilateral cooperation.对双方合作的问题，两位政治家各自所持的看法差距甚大。