Story highlights Bill & Melinda Gates: Child deaths will fall by half by 2030

Mobile phones will give the poor more control over their assets, they say

The authors are co-chairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Their 2015 Annual Letter, from which this article was adapted, is available at www.gatesletter.com. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.

(CNN) Fifteen years ago, the two of us made a bet.

We started our foundation in 2000 with the idea that by backing innovative work in health and education, we could help billions of people improve their lives. The progress we've seen so far is so exciting that we are doubling down on the bet we made 15 years ago.

Here's our bet: The lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any other time in history. We're putting our credibility, time and money behind this bet because we think there has never been a better time to accelerate progress and have a big impact around the world.

Here are four big breakthroughs we see coming by 2030:

First, child deaths will go down by half. In 1990, one in 10 children in the world died before age 5. In 1990, one in 10 children in the world died before age 5. Today, it's one in 20 . By 2030, it will be one in 40. Almost all countries will include vaccines for diarrhea and pneumonia, two of the biggest killers of children, in their immunization programs. Better sanitation will cut the spread of disease dramatically. And we're learning how to help more mothers adopt practices such as proper breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact with their babies that prevent newborns from dying in the first month after they're born.

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