Helping our friends and our family members does not preclude helping women and babies in Africa or victims of the Tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti. We would walk through fire to help our own children and those in our communities, but why stop there?

* Launches 10-year action plan against twin killers * Aims to halt 2 million child deaths a year by 2025 * Ambitious pla...

Ending death from diseases like malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrhea is now possible and can be accomplished at little cost. Can the global community work together to reach the goal of reducing child mortality?

By connecting donors around the world to women in need of care, Watsi has the potential to activate a solution that's completely unprecedented.

On the heels of the Child Survival Summit that took place in Ethiopia at the end of January, India is using its summit to continue the conversation about building a roadmap and strengthen partnerships to end preventable child deaths.

In the year-end issue of Impact, we announce the top 10 global health milestones of 2012. We asked some of the world's most renowned leaders in global health to comment on why these moments made the list. What we heard was insightful and, in many cases, encouraging.

At the start of the new millennium, world leaders promised to cut by half the proportion of people without decent sanitation, and to reduce child mortality by two thirds, all by 2015. We're determined to help the world keep its promises.

As world leaders gather this week at the General Assembly in New York, I'm encouraged by the focus on children's health alongside other pressing global issues. These discussions come in the wake of UNICEF's latest report on declines in child mortality around the world.

Working together through the Global Strategy, we have seen how sound planning, sufficient resources and political will, can make a significant difference in the lives of millions. But the global community can still do much better.

Safe water and sanitation are vital pre-requisites for children to thrive. A lifetime of working in international development does little to numb my shock at seeing young children struggling to survive without these basic human rights.

Since 1990, child deaths have declined by an impressive 40 percent. That's thanks to high-impact solutions like vaccines, oral rehydration therapy to treat diarrhea and improved nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life.

Today was an emotional day. One that every American mother envisions in her head on the day her child is born: My daughter's first day of kindergarten.

I don't care if another mother's beliefs differ than mine, I don't care if she looks different from me, I don't care if she sounds different to me, I don't care if she chooses to wear a hajeb, sari, yukata, suit or sneakers, or suit with her sneakers.

At the Fistula Foundation we work every day to help women injured in childbirth in Africa and Asia, get life-transforming surgery to take them from li...

For most of us, a new baby coming into the family is ample reason for joy and celebration. But imagine a world where a new pregnancy means having to choose which beloved child to feed, clothe, or provide medicine to.

As it celebrates its 50th anniversary, USAID can have no nobler mission than to rededicate itself to the original call to action by its founding father -- President Kennedy -- to lead the way to eradicate world poverty, and help build a world fit for all our children.

We applaud the efforts of these leaders, as we envision a future in which the world's most marginalized children receive the same life-saving interventions as our own. Now we must find the political will and determination to make this a reality.

Ensuring that young children are well nourished has a dramatic impact on their whole lives -- most immediately, on their survival to celebrate a fifth birthday.

It is no longer wishful thinking to imagine a world where the child mortality rates in the poorest countries reach those of wealthier nations, and where every child's right to survive can be realized.

Caring for newborns and young children is only half the battle. It is equally important that we study what happens during pregnancy, because safer and healthier pregnancies will put every child in a better position to live a long and healthy life.

More than 7 million children will die this year before they turn five. That is simply unacceptable. For a brief moment, the world is about to turn its attention to the issue of child survival and nutrition.

Approximately one out of every eight children in sub-Saharan Africa dies before his or her fifth birthday from preventable and treatable causes. These deaths are preventable through the deployment of health systems of the kind being pioneered in the Millennium Villages.