DETERMINANTS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHAR AFRICA

Human development is a key to the success of social and economic development of a country. It is<br> not only to boost incomes, but also to enhance human choices such human rights, freedoms,<br> capabilities and opportunities and to enable people to lead long, healthy and creative lives. This<br> study examines determinants of human development in Sub-Sahara Africa. The study used panel<br> data of 44 Sub-Saharan Africa countries for the period 1990-2019. The time period was bounded<br> to be in between 1990 and 2019 was due to the availability of consistent and organized data. The<br> study was conducted by using quantitative data from secondary sources. Fixed effect regression<br> model was employed to estimate the determinants of human development in Sub-Sahara Africa<br> countries and descriptive research design was employed. Gross domestic product, inflation,<br> dependency ratio, government expenditure on education and health, institutional quality and<br> foreign aid were explanatory variables used in the study. The study found that human development<br> has been improving in sub-Sahara Africa since 1990 albeit considerable proportion of countries in<br> the region still belong to the low human development category. Moreover, human development<br> varies among countries in the region because of differences in economic, social, and institutional<br> variations among the countries. The results of the fixed effect model revealed that economic growth,<br> government expenditure on education, governance or institutional quality and foreign aid are found<br> to affect human development index positively and significantly. On the other hand dependency ratio<br> associates negatively and significantly with human development. The study recommended that<br> improving economic growth, reducing dependency ratio, enhancing government expenditure on<br> education, improving institutional quality and proper utilization of foreign aid have to be given<br> much more attention so as to improve human development in Sub-Sahara Africa Countries.