IMPACT OF HEALTH SECTOR SPENDING ON INFANT/MATERNAL MORTALITY IN NIGERIA (1980-2016

Abstract

A key element of public policy is the promotion of good health in order to attain broad based economic growth. Based on this paradigm, many countries devote huge budgetary allocation to health. However, in most developing countries, this huge health expenditure failed to translate into better health status. Thus, this paper investigates how the effectiveness of public health expenditure is affected by governance in Nigeria. Data on public health expenditure is regressed on infant-mortality ratio using the Autoregressive Distribution Lag Model Approach. Thus, the result obtained shows that public health expenditure has negative effect on infant-maternal mortality ratio. Thisstudy therefore point to a greater role for multilateral development banks like the African Development Bank (AFDB). Apart from increased use of sector-wide approaches (SWAPs), other instruments of intervention in regional member countries (RMCs) include: budget support for resource transfer to the national budget, on the basis of long-term, trusting, partnerships; policy dialogue in poverty reduction strategy and assistance strategy for a about the priority due to pro-poor social sector programs in public expenditure allocations, with due recognition of the needs of evolving programs of action; sector-level dialogue on sector strategies and their implementation.