“The governments of the United States, India, and Ethiopia will in collaboration with UNICEF convene the Child Survival Call to Action in Washington, D.C.,” a two-day event beginning Thursday, which “brings together 700 leaders and global experts to launch a sustained effort to save children’s lives,” a UNICEF press release reports. The initiative “challenges the world” to reduce child mortality to 20 per 1,000 by 2035 worldwide, the press release states, adding, “Reaching this historic target will have saved an estimated additional 45 million children’s lives between 2010 and 2035, bringing the world closer to the ultimate goal of ending preventable child deaths” (6/12).   

According to Reuters/Chicago Tribune, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will be joined at the event by actor Ben Affleck, founder of the Eastern Congo Initiative, “a non-profit group that was formed in 2010 to foster economic and social development for the Congolese people.” Affleck aims “to draw attention to the high rate of preventable child mortality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the country with the “fifth highest mortality rate in the world for children under five years old, the Eastern Congo Initiative said,” the news service writes (Lang, 6/12).