Impact of health, water and sanitation as key drivers of economic progress in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the role of quality of health, water and sanitation as key drivers of economic progress, with a focus on Nigeria from 1990 to 2015. The indicators considered were economic progress (GDP per capita), health (infant mortality rate), access to water and sanitation. The ex-post facto research design was used in this study. Also, the Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) estimation method was chosen. Empirical findings show that there is a long-run relationship where the quality of health, water and sanitation has a positive effect on economic progress. The results indicate that access to water, sanitation and better health boosts the economic progress of Nigeria. It can be said that these facilities complement labour productivity. While comparing the policy options tested in this study, the improvement of the sanitation facilities has the highest marginal impact in fostering growth in Nigeria.