Foreign Aid for Health and Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa
Keywords:
Infant Mortality, Health Aid, Sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract
Death of children in their first one year after birth has been a major health issue of great concern in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to lack of fund in developing countries, foreign aid has been a major supplement to finance basic sectors which impact directly on socioeconomic lives of the people including the health sector. The region has been a recipient of health aid overtime especially after the millennium declaration but knowledge of such on specific health indicator such as infant mortality rate is vague. This study therefore assessed the effects of foreign aid for the health sector on infant mortality in the region. The study used data from 2000-2019 covering forty-six (46) SSA countries retrieved from the OECD, WDI, WGI and UNICEF. The data were analyzed with system GMM while Pooled OLS and the Fixed Effect models were estimated to check for robustness. Inferences were drawn at 5 percent level of significance. Results revealed that health aid, domestic health expenditure, access to improved water and government effectiveness reduced IMR. The study concluded that health aid improved infant mortality in the region and recommended deliberate efforts aimed at improved budgetary spending on healthcare, more judicious utilization of foreign aid and improved provision of safe drinking water to the populace in order to reduce infant mortality in the region.
References
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http://doi.org/10.15408/sjie.v9i2.14960.
Akcay, S. (2006). Corruption and human development. Cato Journal, 26(1), 29-48.
Arellano, M. & Bover, O. (1995). Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-component models. Journal of Econometrics, 68, 29-51.
Blundell, R. & Bond, S. (1998). Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models. Journal of Econometrics, 87(1), 115–143.
Bond, S.R. (2002). Dynamic panel data models: a guide to micro data methods and practice. Portuguese Economic Journal, 1, 141–162. doi.org/10.1007/s10258-002-0009-9
Boone, P. (1996). Politics and the effectiveness of foreign aid. European Economic Review, 40 (2), 289-329.
Burguet, R. & Soto, M. (2013). Seeds of Hope: Assessing the Effect of Development Aid on the Reduction of Child Mortality. ADB Economics Working Paper Series, No. 286
Burnside, C. & Dollar, D. (2000). Aid, policies, and growth. American Economic Review, 90(4), 847-868.
Burnfeind, L. R. (2014). The effects of foreign aid for health on health outcomes in developing countries. MSc Thesis Department of Economics, University of Denver. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 100. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/100
CDC (2020). Commit to healthy choices to help prevent birth defects. Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved on June 20, 2022 from https:www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/prevention.html
Collier, P. & Dollar, D. (2002). Aid Allocation and Poverty Reduction. European Economic Review, 46(8), 1475-1500.
Dalgaard, C-J., Hasen H. & Tarp F. (2004). On the Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth. The Economic Journal, 114(496), 191-216.
Doucouliagos, C., Hennessy, J. & Mallick, D. (2019). Health aid, governance and infant mortality. IZA Institute of Labour Economics Discussion Paper Series IZA DP No. 12166, 1-46
Easterly, W., Levine, R. & Roodman, D. (2004). Aid, Policies and Growth: Comment. The American Economic Review, 94(3), 774-780.
Genowska, A., Jamiołkowski, J., Szafraniec, K., Stepaniak, U., Szpak, A., & Pająk, A. (2015). Environmental and socio-economic determinants of infant mortality in Poland: An ecological study. Environmental Health. 14: 61. doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0048-1.
Goldin I. (2019). Why do some countries develop and others not? In: Dobrescu P. (eds) Development in Turbulent Times. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11361-2_2
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation –IHME (2018). Financing Global Health 2017: Funding Universal Health Coverage and the Unfinished HIV/AIDS Agenda. Seattle, WA.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A., & Mastruzzi, M. (2009). Governance matters VIII: aggregate and individual governance indicators 1996-2008. World Bank Research Working Paper, 4978.
Kaufmann, D.; Kraay, A., & Mastruzzi, M. (2003). Governance Matters III: Governance Indicators for 1996–2002. World Bank Policy Research Department Working Paper No. 3106. Washington: World Bank.
Kaufmann, D.; Kraay, A., & Zoido-Lobaton, P. (1999). Governance Matters. World Bank Policy Research Department Working Paper No. 2196. Washington: World Bank.
Kiross, G. T., Chojenta, C., Barker, D. & Loxton, D. (2020). The effects of health expenditure on infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from panel data analysis. Health Economics Review, 10(5), 1-9. DOI:10.1186/s13561-020-00262-3
Kizhakethalackal, E. T. (2009). A note on infant mortality and foreign health-aid. Applied Econometrics and International Development, 9(2), 43-53.
Knox, D. (2020). Aid spent on health: ODA data on donors, sectors and recipients. Development Initiatives UK. Retrieved on August 14, 2022 from https://devinit.org/resources/aid-spent-health-oda-data-donors-sectors-recipients/
Kosack, S. (2003). Effective aid: How democracy allows development aid to improve the quality of life. World Development, 31(1), 1-22.
Kotsadam, A., Ostby, G., Rustad, A.S., Tollefsen, A.F., & Urdai, H. (2018). Development aid and infant mortality: Micro-level evidence from Nigeria. World Development, 105, 59-69.
Kumar, R. & Pal, R. (2018). Indian achieves WHO recommended doctor-population ratio: A call for paradigm shift in public health discourse. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 7(5), 841-844.
Mishra, P. & Newhouse, D. (2007). Health aid and infant mortality. IMF Working Paper WP/07/100
OECD (2021). Creditors Reporting System – Statistics. Available online at stats.oecd.org
Radelet, S. (2004). Aid effectiveness and the Millennium Development Goals. Working Paper Number 39, Centre for Global Development
Roodman, D. (2009a). How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in stata. The Stata Journal, 9(1), 86-136.
Roodman D. (2009b). A Note on the theme of too many instruments, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 71(1), 135-158.
Toseef, M. U., Jensen, G. A. & Tarraf, W. (2019). How effective is foreign aid at improving health outcomes in recipient countries? Atlantic Journal of Economics, 47(4), 429-444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-019-09645-2
Wilson, S. E. (2011). Chasing success: Health sector aid and mortality. World Development, 39(11), 2032-2043.
World Bank (2020). World Development Indicators. Retrieved on June 16, 2020 from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/
World Bank (2018). The World Bank Annual Report 2018. Washington DC. World Bank
World Gorvernance Indicators – WGI (2017). Interactive Data Access. Available at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/
World Health Organization WHO (2018). Global Health Observatory – Number of deaths due to HIV. Retrieved from www.who.int on September 1, 2020.
World Health Organization - WHO (2015). Infant Mortality Rate (PDF). Geneva, Switzerland: Retrieved on January 6, 2022. (WHO, 2015)
World Health Organization – WHO (2014). 2014 in review: key health issues. Retrieved on January 3, 2020 from https://www.who.int/features/2014/year_review/jan-apr/en/
Yousuf, A. S. (2012). Impact of health aid on infant mortality rate. Munich Personal RePEc Archive MPRA Paper No. 42945. Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/42945/
Published
2023-05-29
Section
Articles
