INFANT MORTALITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

HL Deb 21 May 1990 vol 519 c743WA

Lord Jenkins of Putney

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the UNICEF estimate that half a million children are dying each year as the direct result of the debt crisis is probably correct.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

This estimate is based on the dubious assumption that it is the debt crisis which accounts for the fact that infant mortality rates in developing countries declined less fast in the 1980s than in the 1970s.