The World Health Statistics series is WHO's annual compilation of health statistics for its 194 Member States. The World Health Statistics 2016focuses on the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. It represents an initial effort to bring together available data on SDG health and health-related indicators, providing an assessment of the situation in 2016. The SDG health goal -- ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages -- includes 13 targets, covering all major health priorities, and including the unfinished and expanded Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agenda, four targets to address noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), mental health, injuries and environmental issues, and four "means of implementation" targets. This report also seeks to demonstrate the critical linkages between health and other SDGs by including indicators of selected health determinants and risk factors in other SDG targets. The series is produced by the WHO Department of Information, Evidence and Research, of the Health Systems and Innovation Cluster. As in previous years, World Health Statistics 2016 has been compiled using publications and databases produced and maintained by WHO technical programs and regional offices. WHO presents World Health Statistics 2016as an integral part of its ongoing efforts to provide enhanced access to comparable high-quality statistics on core measures of population health and national health systems. Unless otherwise stated, all estimates have been cleared following consultation with Member States and are published here as official WHO figures.

Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This report celebrates the achievements of the past three decades and highlights the critical work that remains. It presents data on several key issues where progress is stalling or reversing: child mortality, immunization, climate change, education participation, child marriage, and urbanization. The report also advocates for all stakeholders to recommit to the Convention, stepping up their efforts to fulfil its promise in the next 30 years.

More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.