Health sector financing
Health aid and infant mortality
Quality of policies and institutions increases the effectiveness of health aid in reducing infant mortality
Authors:
P. Mishra; D. Newhouse
Publisher:
International Monetary Fund Working Papers, 2007
This IMF working paper examines the relationship between health aid and infant mortality, using data from 118 countries between 1973 and 2004. Although there is little evidence that aid promotes economic growth, foreign aid is often credited with saving lives by providing vaccines, eradicating deadly diseases and improving medicinal services.
The paper finds that health aid has a statistically significant effect on infant mortality: doubling per capita health aid is associated with a two per cent reduction in the infant mortality rate. For the average country this implies that increasing per capita health aid by us$1.60 per year is associated with 1.5 fewer infant deaths per thousand births. In addition, there is some evidence that health aid has become more effective in reducing infant mortality since 1990, and that it is more effective in countries with higher quality policies and institutions. The authors conclude that whilst overall aid does not have a significant effect on reducing infant mortality, health aid is associated with a statistically significant rise in health spending.
