Environmental health, health outcomes, poverty and sustainable development in developing countries
Safe drinking water and good sanitation are very important facilities to humanity especially to improve health outcomes and achieving sustainable development. There exists a large variation in accessibility of these facilities amongst the more developed (higher- and upper-middle income) and le...
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Format: | Thesis |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2018
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Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/75799/1/FEP%202018%2029%20IR.pdf http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/75799/ |
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Summary: | Safe drinking water and good sanitation are very important facilities to humanity
especially to improve health outcomes and achieving sustainable development.
There exists a large variation in accessibility of these facilities amongst the more
developed (higher- and upper-middle income) and less developed (low- and lowermiddle
income) countries. Therefore, socioeconomic indicators such as health
outcomes, poverty and sustainable development could be largely affected as
population get access to safe drinking and good sanitation.
This study aims to estimate the impact of environmental health (access to safe
drinking water and good sanitation) on health outcomes (under-five mortality) in 81
low- and lower-middle income countries in the world. The second objective
examines the direct effect of environmental health on poverty in 81 low- and lowermiddle
income countries. Also, it estimated the indirect effects of environmental
health on poverty through labour-force productivity. While the third objective aims
at to examine the impact of environmental health, under-five mortality, and poverty
on sustainable development in 47 developing countries. Generalized method of
moments (GMM) was employed to estimate the dynamic models in all the three
objectives. The period of nine years was used in all the three models from 2008 to
2016.
The results show that, access to safe drinking water and good sanitation are very
critical determinants for reducing the prevalence of under-five mortality in
developing countries (low- and lower-middle income countries). Interestingly, both
results of difference and system GMM have indicated a negative relationship
between access to safe drinking water and good sanitation and under-five mortality.This implies that as population get access to safe drinking water and good sanitation
facilities, the prevalence of water-related diseases such as malaria, cholera, diarrhea
and dengue would be reduced, hence the prevalence of under-five mortality would
also declined.
Regarding the second the objective, the result reveal that, access to safe drinking
water and good sanitation also plays a significant role both direct and indirectly in
poverty reduction in low- and lower-middle income countries. Both the direct and
indirect links have indicated that access to safe drinking water and good sanitation is
negatively related to poverty. The indirect relationship explained the conditional
hypothesis, in which the marginal effect of the interaction term between labour-force
productivity and access to safe drinking water and good sanitation. The result shows
that reduction of poverty due to access to safe drinking water and good sanitation is
conditional on the effectiveness of human capital (labour-force productivity).
Finally, the third objective discloses a contribution to sustainable development
literature by providing empirical link between environmental health, under-five
mortality and poverty with sustainable development using the Green Solow growth
model. The estimated results revealed that, environmental health especially access to
safe drinking water is an essential factor for achieving sustainable development, with
a positive relationship amongst them. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and under-five
mortality were found to be negatively related to sustainable development in
developing countries. This study has also utilised the three indicators of governors
(control of corruption, regulatory qualities and governance effectiveness) in the
analysis. The results of difference and system GMM suggested that governance
indicators are important and crucial factors for achieving sustainable development in
developing countries.
For policy implication, the study suggest that, governments in low- and lowermiddle
income countries should ensure the provision safe drinking water for all.
Also enforcement of environmental sanitation laws should be maintained.
Secondly, to alleviate poverty, the study recommend Government policies especially
fiscal policy should focused on provision of safe drinking water amongst
households/communities as to overcome the suffering of people toward waterpoverty
nexus. Enhancing productivity of labour through human capital investment
is also recommended to mitigate poverty in those countries.
Finally, Government of developing countries should enact policies that geared
towards increasing economic growth and development alone side with ensuring
quality of environment. Agreements signed by various governments during Rio-De
Janerio (Rio- Summit) and beyond toward adopting sustainable practice in managing
natural resources like water and reduction in green-house gasses globally should be
implemented. |
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