Globally, around 100 million children can't go to school - yet most people, including world leaders, see education as a route out of poverty.

Every day, in some of the world's poorest countries, more than 38,000 people die from infectious diseases and 8,000 people die each day from HIV/AIDS.

Globally, there is an estimated health worker shortage of four million - one million of these in Africa. Health workers are considered the ultimate resource of health systems.

Boys from Lergho primary school, Burkina Faso, playing a game during their lunch-break. Universal primary education is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Photo: Crispin Hughes/Oxfam

The Make Poverty History campaign to end poverty in 2005 focused on the key issues of trade justice, more and better aid, and drop the debt. There was a commitment by all governments to end poverty, and essential social services - education, health and water for all - are essential to this.

In 2006, Oxfam will focus on the delivery of education and health for all poor people. Included in the demands will be:

Southern governments to commit more of their budgets to health and education.

Rebecca Lokalii, 13, (left) collecting water from the pump in the wadi (dry river bed) in Kalobeiyei, Kenya. Rebecca walks 4km to reach the hand-pump and return home. Over a billion people in the world do not have access to clean water and over two million people die from diseases related to lack of safe drinking water every year. Photo: Crispin Hughes/Oxfam