TIME: How the World Is Improving Children’s Health (And Where We’re Falling Short)
Editorial Board

“…In recognition of the [Declaration of the Rights of the Child], every Nov. 20 is now observed as Universal Children’s Day, and … [t]he news this year, as in so many other years, is decidedly mixed. … Most of the improvement has come from simple interventions … The … lingering bad news is that the majority of [child deaths] come even earlier — newborns claimed in their first year or even first day of life. But the good news buried deeper still is that the interventions in these cases are even simpler. … Taking care of the world’s children really ought to be a lot easier than not taking care of them. The most powerful line of genetic code our species carries is to protect and nurture not just our own daughters and sons, but those of the rest of the world. That is the only way the species goes on at all. A Universal Children’s Day is a good time to feel sorrow for the fact that we forget that simple truth — and pride at the work that’s being done to set things right” (11/20).