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This paper analyses changes in key indicators of child wellbeing over the last twenty years on the basis of grouped data and microdata derived from twenty Demographic and Health Surveys. Over 1980-2000, most indicators of child well-being recorded a continuation of the favourable trends that characterized the 1960s and 1970s. Yet, this positive trend needs to be qualified in five respects. First, while indicators such as the infant-mortality rate (IMR) and under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) recorded mostly steady gains, progress was minimal in the field of child malnutrition and child poverty. Second, even for IMR and U5MR the pace of improvement was slower than that recorded during the 1960s and 1970s while–third–the intra and infra regional distribution of these gains became more skewed. Two regions were particular hardly hit, ie Sub Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that were …