Effect of Health Development Assistance on Health Outcome Indicators in Sub-Saharan African Countries

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of health development assistance (HDA) on health outcome indicators employing child mortality rates (CMR) as a proxy using the panel-constructed data set of twenty (20) Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1990-2021. Panel co-integration estimation technique and System GMM econometric methods were employed to assess the relationship between CMR and HDA. The finding from the study indicates that health development assistance (HDA) has an improved effect on health outcome indicators (CMR) employed as a proxy. Health development assistance has a statistically significant and negative effect on child mortality rates. A one percent increase in health development assistance decreases the child mortality rates by eight (8) or one (1) per 1,000 live births in the region in each estimation technique employed in this study. This study concludes that health development assistance has an improved impact on the health outcome indicator (CMR) employed as a proxy in Sub-Saharan African countries. The study recommends, among others, that Sub-Saharan African countries should find ways of progressing domestic factors that (like GDPPC, improved exchange rate, and better domestic private health spending) will continue to impact health outcome indicators favourably in the region to bring an end to the era of repeated dependency on external resources for mitigating health-related challenges in the region; and also suggests that the reasons for the ineffectiveness of HDA in the short run in the region should be investigated and the findings made public.