UNIGME Report 2025, Key Findings, India’s Performance

India has emerged as a key contributor to global progress in reducing child mortality, according to the latest United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME) Report 2025. The report highlights India’s sustained and large-scale efforts in improving child survival outcomes, particularly across neonatal and under-five mortality indicators.

UNIGME Report 2025 Key Findings

The UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME) 2025 report highlights global trends in child and newborn deaths, identifies leading causes, and recognises India’s notable progress in reducing under-five and neonatal mortality.

Global Findings

• In 2024, an estimated 4.9 million children died before the age of five worldwide, including 2.3 million newborns. Most of these deaths were preventable with proven, low-cost interventions and access to quality healthcare.
• Newborn deaths account for nearly half of all under-five deaths, reflecting slower progress in preventing deaths around the time of birth.
• While global under-five deaths have fallen by more than half since 2000, the rate of reduction has slowed by over 60% since 2015.
• Leading causes of newborn deaths were complications from preterm birth (36%), and complications during labour and delivery (21%). Infections, including neonatal sepsis and congenital anomalies, were also important causes.
• Beyond the first month, infectious diseases, including malaria, diarrhoea, and pneumonia were major killers. Malaria remained the single largest killer in this age group (17%), with most deaths occurring in endemic areas of sub-Saharan Africa. 
• The UN report found that in 2024, about 2.1 million young people aged 5-24 years died. For younger children, infections and accidents were the main causes. In teenagers, the risks change: girls aged 15-19 mostly died by self-harm, while boys mostly died in road accidents.
• For the first time, the UN report counted deaths caused directly by severe malnutrition. In 2024, over 1 lakh children aged 1-59 months (about 5% of all young children deaths) died from it. The number is actually higher because malnutrition makes children weak and more likely to die from other common illnesses.
• In 2024, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 58% of all under-five deaths. 
• 60 countries are at risk of missing the SDG under-5 mortality target, and 66 are at risk of missing the neonatal target.

The report calls on governments, donors, and partners to make child survival a political and financing priority, focus resources on the highest-burden regions, and invest in primary health care systems. It notes that every dollar invested in child survival can generate up to twenty dollars in social and economic benefits.

Findings related to South Asia

• The Southern Asia region has witnessed a 76% decline in under-five deaths since 1990 and 68% decline since 2000. 
• The region’s under-five mortality rate has fallen significantly from 92 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 to nearly 32 in 2024. 
• This sharp reduction is largely driven by countries like India through targeted public health interventions, improved institutional delivery systems, and expanded immunization coverage.
• Across Southern Asia Neonatal deaths declined by nearly 60% since 2000 and Mortality in children aged 1–59 months declined by over 75%.
• While Southern Asia still accounts for nearly 25% of global under-five deaths, the region has made one of the fastest reductions globally, positioning India as a leader among high-burden countries.

India’s Performance

India has made remarkable progress in improving child survival outcomes, as highlighted in the latest UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME) report.

• India’s Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) has fallen from 127 deaths/1,000 live births in 1990 to 26.6 in 2024.
• India’s Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) has declined by nearly 70% from 57 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 16.7 in 2024.
• India’s under-five mortality rate (U5MR) is now below the Southern Asia regional average of 32.8.
• The report notes that India is among the first few countries globally to set targets and release operational guidelines on stillbirth surveillance.

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Key Drivers of India’s Progress

India’s scaling up of interventions such as the Universal Immunisation Programme, facility-based newborn care, and Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses has significantly improved survival rates.

• Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) and Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK) have increased institutional deliveries, reduced preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
• Special Newborn Care Units (SNCUs), Newborn Stabilisation Units (NBSUs), Mother-Newborn Care Units (MNCUs) have expanded access and improved the quality of newborn care.
• Tele-SNCU hub-and-spoke model and District Early Intervention Centres (DEICs) have improved reach in remote areas.
• India is among the first countries to release operational guidelines on stillbirth surveillance.

Despite progress, challenges remain:

• In 2024, 386,000 of 615,000 under-five deaths (63%) occurred in the neonatal period (first 28 days).
• India’s NMR of 16.7 remains above the SDG target of 12 per 1,000 live births.
• Meeting the SDGs will require the country to roughly double its pace of progress on newborn survival.
• Major causes of neonatal deaths include preterm birth complications, birth asphyxia, and infections, which require quality antenatal care, skilled birth attendance, and newborn care services that are unevenly distributed.

 About UNIGME

• The United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) was formed in 2004.
• Objective: To share data on child mortality, improve methods for child mortality estimation, report on progress towards child survival goals, and enhance country capacity to produce timely and properly assessed estimates of child mortality.
• The UN IGME is led by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and includes the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs as full members.
• UNIGME’s independent Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and Core Stillbirth Estimation Group (CSEG), comprised of leading academic scholars and independent experts in demography and biostatistics, provide guidance on estimation methods, technical issues, and strategies for data analysis and data quality assessment.
• UN IGME updates its child mortality estimates annually after reviewing newly available data and assessing data quality.