Maternal and child health (MCH) consists of an interdependent reproductive system that collectively determines the survival of the mother during childbirth, and determines the health and survival of the child. This interdependency underscores the importance of appropriate and timely interventions during pregnancy through the first 1000 d at the minimum. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) recommended the use of the continuum of care for the development of interventions by addressing all the stages of MCH. The purpose of the present paper is to review the factors that contributed to the attainment of the MDG 4 and MDG 5 by analysing the interventions conducted by the countries that achieved at least 5·0 and 5·5 %, respectively, and determine the level of their intervention based on the MCH conceptual framework. Out of the eighteen selected countries discussed, fifteen countries achieved their target for either MDG 4 or MDG 5 or both, while three countries did not achieve their target. The countries that were more likely to achieve their targets addressed the societal, underlying and direct causes, and implemented country wide policies. In contrast, the countries that did not succeed were more likely to address the direct causes with poor policy implementation. Understanding the motivation and limitations of the target population, including nutrition education and targeting behaviour change has the potential to result in sustainable MCH. This information has the potential to enlighten the policymakers as we progress to the sustainable development goals, specifically goals 2 and 3.

Without realizing it perhaps, the research activities of many parasitologists are often focused upon the study of parasites most commonly found in children. Though there is little recognition of paediatric parasitology as a separate topic within medical parasitology, with the global interest in promotion of maternal and child health, alleviation of diseases associated with poverty and requirements of ‘child-sized’ medicines, a more formal consideration is now timely. Recent research, for example, has highlighted that defining precisely the ‘first-age’ at which parasites interfere with a child's health, or normal developmental processes, is being revised. Attention is now drawn towards ever younger subjects, for parasites have the capacity to also influence the health of the foetus within the in utero environment, altering immune-development. These subtle, yet evolutionary profound interactions perhaps manifest themselves as to why some children are more prone to infection(s), develop overt disease and sadly die while others do not. Here, we address the growing importance of paediatric parasitology and its applications within disease control strategies as highlighted in the 2010 Autumn Symposium of the British Society of Parasitology.

Although the Millennium Development Goals, declared by the General Assembly in the Millennium Declaration in 2000, do not refer specifically to energy, in reality none of the goals can be attained without universal access to modern energy services. Recent reports from the United Nations have drawn attention to the link between energy and poverty, and have shown that the access to modern energy services is essential for lifting peoples out of poverty and fundamentally improving their quality of life on an everyday basis.

This article examines the nature and magnitude of the situation in less developed states lacking universal access to modern energy services and considers the current, limited national and international law in this area. The article then argues that it is international law that must play the major role in ensuring that universal access to energy services is realized. It considers what type of international instrument might best serve the purpose of achieving progress in improving modern energy services for those in poverty. Finally, the article provides a draft of such an instrument, together with an explanatory commentary, as a prototype of the steps that could be taken by the international community to achieve progress in this area if there is sufficient political will.

The Bishops of the Anglican Communion met on the campus of the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, for the Lambeth Conference in July 2008. The Conference took place at a time when the Anglican Communion was going through turbulence over the issue of human sexuality. Accordingly, there was much expectation that the Conference would inter alia discuss and come up with the way forward on the issue of homosexuality. Prudently, the Conference’s focus rested on the real Mission of the Church, epitomized by the Walk of Witness on July 24, 2009 from Whitehall and Westminster to Lambeth Palace. There, Archbishop Rowan Williams spoke of the Communion’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is within this context that this article seeks to discuss the issue of the MDGs in the context of the Lambeth Conference, from the perspective of Botswana. It is my intention to show that the Anglican Communion should be focused on the life and death issues of eradicating abject poverty, HIV and AIDS, malaria, bad governance, unjust trade policies and environment, rather than wasting valuable spiritual energy on the ‘luxury’ of human sexuality which is a non-issue for the poor.

HIV/AIDS is associated with biological and social factors that affect the individual's ability to consume and utilize food and to acquire food. These biological and social factors lead to poor nutritional status and weight loss, which are an important cause of morbidity in individuals infected with HIV, resulting in a poor quality of life; weight loss is an important predictor of death from AIDS. The links between nutrition and HIV/AIDS amplify the negative effects of HIV infection on human development at individual, household, community and national levels. For many developing countries the incidence of HIV/AIDS and malnutrition is impeding progress towards achieving the UN millennium development goals. Aggressive interventions to curb the spread of HIV continue to be needed. Concurrent efforts to improve nutrition for populations living with HIV/AIDS should also be given priority.

Whereas common infectious and parasitic diseases such as malaria and the HIV/AIDS pandemic remain major unresolved health problems in many developing countries, emerging non-communicable diseases relating to diet and lifestyle have been increasing over the last two decades, thus creating a double burden of disease and impacting negatively on already over-stretched health services in these countries. Prevalence rates for type 2 diabetes mellitus and CVD in sub-Saharan Africa have seen a 10-fold increase in the last 20 years. In the Arab Gulf current prevalence rates are between 25 and 35% for the adult population, whilst evidence of the metabolic syndrome is emerging in children and adolescents. The present review focuses on the concept of the epidemiological and nutritional transition. It looks at historical trends in socio-economic status and lifestyle and trends in nutrition-related non-communicable diseases over the last two decades, particularly in developing countries with rising income levels, as well as the other extreme of poverty, chronic hunger and coping strategies and metabolic adaptations in fetal life that predispose to non-communicable disease risk in later life. The role of preventable environmental risk factors for obesity and the metabolic syndrome in developing countries is emphasized and also these challenges are related to meeting the millennium development goals. The possible implications of these changing trends for human and economic development in poorly-resourced healthcare settings and the implications for nutrition training are also discussed.

The FAO World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 set the goal of halving the numbers of the global population suffering hunger by the year 2015, which was later incorporated into the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that commit the international community to an expanded vision of development, and one that vigorously promotes human development as the key to sustaining social and economic progress in all countries. The two targets under the first MDG goal to eradicate poverty and hunger call for halving the proportion of individuals who suffer from poverty and from hunger by 2015. This commitment is another instance of the international community through the UN system yet again renewing its efforts and setting a target and a time frame to deal with the global problem of hunger, poverty and malnutrition. To date, the efforts to reduce global hunger in the developing world have fallen far short of the pace required to meet these targets. There has no doubt been some progress and several countries in the developing world have proved that success is possible. The economic and societal costs to developing countries of not taking decisive action, and thus failing to achieve a reduction in hunger and undernutrition, including micronutrient malnutrition costs, are that every year five million children lose their lives, 220 million disability-adjusted life years are lost as a result of childhood and maternal undernutrition and billions of dollars are lost in productivity and incomes in these countries. Alongside this perennial problem in developing societies are emerging new epidemics of diet-related diseases resulting from the profound demographic changes, urbanization and the economic transition that is transforming and globalizing the food systems in these countries. Thus, many developing countries are facing new and additional challenges of co-existing hunger alongside the emergence of other forms of malnutrition. Meeting the WFS and MDG targets of achieving the goal of halving global hunger is urgent, and the question that needs to be addressed is not whether the international community can achieve this goal in time but whether it can afford not to.