Health Infrastructure and Economic Development Nexus in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria like many other Sub-Saharan African countries has been plagued with lack of functional infrastructure in order to grow the economy. Recent events in Nigeria, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged in late 2019 and continues to impact Nigeria, has exposed the vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the country's health infrastructure. This study investigates the impact of health infrastructure on economic development in Nigeria. The study employed time series data. Health infrastructure was captured by government recurrent and capital expenditure on health while economic development was proxied by per capita gross national product. The Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) estimation technique was used to establish the long run relationship among the variables. It was revealed that long run relationship exists among the variables in the estimated model. The results of the Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) within the framework of the ARDL shows that health infrastructure has significant impact on economic development in Nigeria. The study concludes that health infrastructure plays key roles in influencing economic development in Nigeria, and for the optimal performance of the economy, the government must increase infrastructural spending on health care in order to reduce the rate of maternal, infant and under-five mortality in the country. The study recommends that; there is a need for the government at all levels to massively invest in the provision of health infrastructure which is a strong viable means of reducing mortality incidence and enhancing economic development in Nigeria. Nigeria’s share of government expenditure to the health sector ranges between 5-7 percent, which falls immensely below the minimum standard of 16 percent as recommended by UNESCO for a developing country, which calls for emergency intervention in the health sect