Poverty reduction and maternal mortality in African countries

Maternal mortality continued increase in African countries remains a source of concern that continues to threaten the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 5 by 2030. This study investigated the effects of various poverty reduction variables on maternal mortality rate in the 35 selected African countries between 2000 and 2023. The study employed Dynamic Fixed Effect and Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag comprising, Mean Group (MG) and Panel Mean Group (PMG) estimation techniques to analyze the collected data. Female Employment ( FEM ), Female Education ( FEDU ), Domestic General Government Health Expenditure ( DGGHE ) and Government Effectiveness ( GOEF ) showed negative significant relationships with Maternal Mortality Rate ( MMR ) under PMG in the long-run while ln of Gross Domestic Product Per Capita ( lnGDPPC ) revealed negative and positive significant relationships with MMR under DFE and PMG in the long-run. Short-run estimates showed that FEM and FEDU have positive and significant relationships with MMR under MG and PMG while lnGDPPC is only positive and significant under MG. The study recommended prioritization of female employments, promotions and accessibility of female to education, enhanced and well-distributed GDPPC, incremental and well-monitored DGGHE , and proactive, effective and efficient government institutions in all African countries so as to make Sustainable Development Goal 5 a reality in advance to 2030. This research amplifies the employment of varieties of poverty reduction variables to land up at more sound outcomes with an assurance for information-gathering and practices.