Abstract
In 2010, the G8 placed renewed focus on maternal health via the Muskoka Initiative by committing to spend an additional $5 billion on maternal, newborn, and child health before 2015. Following the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals, maternal health issues have continued to feature prominently on the global health agenda. Despite these substantial investments of foreign aid over the past decade, there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of foreign aid in reducing maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Development Indicators and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, this study analyzes the effects of aid on maternal health in a sample of 130 LMICs from 1996 through 2015. Our results show that the effects of total foreign aid on maternal mortality are limited, but that aid allocated to the reproductive health sector and directly at maternal health is associated with significant reductions in maternal mortality. Given these targeted effects, it is important to channel more donor assistance to the promotion of reproductive health and contraceptive use among women as it serves as a tool towards the reduction of maternal mortality.
Highlights
Recent debates concerning the effectiveness of aid in improving development outcomes have been inconclusive (Tilburg, 2015)
Evidence suggests most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were not able to meet the targets of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing maternal mortality ratio by 75% between 1990 and 2015 (WHO et al, 2015)
For instance, reproductive health aid is channeled to the promotion of prenatal and postnatal care including deliveries, an increase in reproductive health aid will have a greater likelihood of diminishing maternal mortality rate (MMR)
Summary
Recent debates concerning the effectiveness of aid in improving development outcomes have been inconclusive (Tilburg, 2015). Aid critics (Easterly, 2006; Moyo, 2009; Winters, 2010) have voiced their concerns that aid is “dead” They maintain that billions of dollars have been transferred to poor economies with the aim of improving living conditions, but the results have always been catastrophic, leaving more than a billion people still living in abject poverty. Following the MDGs, the SDGs set a target of lowering MMR to 70 per 100,000 live births, as part of SDG 3’s goal to “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages” To this end, several donor countries have pledged their support to increase funding towards the reduction of maternal health levels to the countries with the poorest health indicators (Proulx, Ruckert, & Labonté, 2017). It is argued that if the productive workforce is healthy, they can work meaningfully towards higher productivity translating into a higher economic growth and development
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