Addis Ababa — In the years leading up to 2000, sub-Saharan Africa saw striking progress towards Millennium Development Goal 2, achieving universal primary school enrolment - a solid seven percent increase.
But over the same period, maternal mortality stood at a tragic 920 deaths per 100,000 births. And 30,000 children a day were, and are, dying before their fifth birthday.
On the face of it, it should not be difficult to reduce this grim toll. Five diseases - pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS - account for 50 percent of all deaths under five years of age. The burden of four of those diseases (excluding AIDS) could be easily met through low cost prevention and treatment.
Similarly, measles strikes 30 million children a year in sub-Saharan Africa. A safe, effective and inexpensive vaccine has been available for 40 years. But only 61 percent of children are immunised.
The picture is the same for maternal mortality. In Africa, the chances of dying during pregnancy or childbirth are as high as one in 16, compared to one in 3,800 in the developed world. It goes without saying that a mother's death has devastating consequences on the children left behind.
So why are education targets proving possible in sub-Saharan Africa yet health targets are way off the mark?
One reason could be that not enough girls are going to school.
Although school attendance is up, there are only seven girls for every 10 boys enrolled in primary education. Currently, average primary school completion rates for boys in sub-Saharan Africa stand at 56 percent, but only 46 percent for girls (low in both cases). And in countries such as Burkina Faso, Guinea, Madagascar, Mozambique and Niger less than 15 percent of girls complete primary school.
Yet, as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan puts it: "We know from study after study that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls and women.
"No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition, promote health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS, and increase the chances of education for the next generation."
In fact one of the best ways to prevent and treat the diseases that devastate the lives of poor people is not medicine but education.
Countries such as Benin, Egypt and Sudan have made remarkable progress in reducing maternal mortality rates. In Egypt for example, maternal mortality was reduced by a whopping 50 percent in just eight years because skilled attendants were present at birth - a consequence of education. There was a focus on formal education for women, as well as community education on reproductive health and family planning. In fact Egypt has almost achieved gender parity in primary education and has reached full gender parity in secondary education.
Just one extra year of education for girls reduces infant mortality by five to 10 percent
The fact is, the MDGs are inextricably linked to each other: success or failure in one target can have a knock-on effect on the others. Goal 3, to get as many girls as boys into school may seem to be about education. But progress on Goal 3 will probably deliver progress on Goals 5 and 6 - for improving the health of mothers and reducing disease.
One of the biggest advantages of educating girls - apart from equipping them for employment later in life - is that children with educated mothers are twice as likely to go to school and are less malnourished.
Educating girls even boosts the economy. According to the World Bank, the more girls continue to secondary school, the higher a country's per capita income growth.
Education gives people choices. Educated women make more informed and therefore better choices. If governments and their partners can coordinate interventions to try and meet targets simultaneously, their investments will reinforce each other.
When a girl is educated, an entire family is educated and a whole community benefits.
