Assessment of the Impacts of Health Related Millennium Development Goals’ Intervention on Economic Growth in Nigeria: 2000-2015

Abstract

In September, 2000, the 189 member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted a millennium declaration tagged “The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).” as an attempt to address the challenges relating to extreme poverty, hunger, health, gender equality, education, environmental sustainability and global partnership for development. Three of the goals were health-specific while the others can be regarded as health enhancing as there exist some form of positive correlation between health system development and sustainable economic growth. This study empirically investigates the effect of Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs) health interventions on economic growth in Nigeria for the period 2000 – 2015. It adopts the least squares regression analysis to examine the impact of MDGs 4, 5, and 6 in improving the health system performance for Nigeria’s economic growth. The model adopted views health as a durable capital stock that yields an output of a healthy economy whose production function account for the gap between health care as an output and medical care as an input into the aggregate output of an economy. Results show that increased recurrent expenditures on health and reduction in infant mortality rate has positive impact on economic growth while low life expectancy at birth, high rate of maternal mortality rate and the spread of HIV/AIDS have negative impact on economic growth/. The study conclude with recommendations including increase in public spending on health, targeting intervention on high risk and vulnerable women and children, as well as  speeding up efforts to track down the spread of HIV/AIDs among others as means to achieve sustainable growth.