BEYOND SECTORAL SPENDING: SYNERGIES BETWEEN HEALTH AND EDUCATION EXPENDITURES ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Hussaini Aliyu Jibril, PhD and Mohammed Jibrin Mohammed
Volume 12 Issue 3
Abstract
This study investigates the synergistic effect of combined government health and education expenditure on human development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), departing from the conventional approach of examining sectoral expenditures independently. The study argues that integrating health and education expenditure into a unified human capital expenditure variable better captures the complementary relationship between the two sectors and provides a more comprehensive explanation of human development outcomes. Annual panel data (2000 -2022) for selected SSA countries were analysed using the Cross-Sectional Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) model, with the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator employed as a robustness check. Prior to estimation, the study conducted cross-sectional dependence, panel unit root, slope heterogeneity and cointegration tests to ensure the validity of the empirical analysis. The findings reveal that combined human capital expenditure exerts a positive and statistically significant long-run effect on the Human Development Index (HDI), with a 1% increase in HCEX improving HDI by approximately 0.063 units, while the PMG estimator confirms the robustness of the relationship with a coefficient of 0.042 units. Urbanization, government effectiveness and ICT access also enhance human development, whereas carbon emissions significantly reduce HDI. The study concludes that the effectiveness of public expenditure in SSA depends not only on the volume of spending but also on the coordination of investments across the health and education sectors. It therefore recommends that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa adopt an integrated human capital budgeting framework that jointly prioritizes health and education spending to accelerate improvements in human development and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Keywords: Health and Education expenditure; Human Development, CS-ARDL; Sub-Saharan Africa.
Download Paper