February 2009

Rarely do we come across a video that is visually beautiful, intellectually stimulating and emotionally inspiring.  “One childhood” is a documentary about how schools and schoolteachers in Eritrea are part of the campaign to improve children’s health.  Based on the actual findings of two thorough technical evaluations that showed the wide coverage and effectiveness of the Eritrea programs, the film tells the story of how school health is now being delivered in the mountains of Eritrea, in the arid lands of the Red Sea coast and in urban Asmara.  Available on YouTube, where it has been seen by 14,000 people in a month—probably 13,980 more than read the two technical reports—the film has won the CINE Golden Eagle award.  It can also be viewed here.

Truth in advertising:  The film’s executive producer, Don Bundy, is a colleague and may be a distant cousin of mine [don’t ask!].

World economic growth in 2009 is expected to decline to its slowest rate since the Great Depression. In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, the latest IMF’s World Economic Outlook projects the region to grow by 3.25% this year, down from 5.4% in 2008. Many economists are now expecting the crisis to hit Africa harder and longer than was previously projected. Not only will the crisis impact human development and economic indicators, but Africa’s governance and conflicts may be affected as well. Although the channels through which economic collapses affect governance and conflicts are often country-specific, institutions in poor countries tend to be so strained that ethnic tensions and confrontational politics can get worse when competition for scarce resources increases.

Empirical evidence on growth accelerations and collapses in Africa between 1975 and 2005 suggests that governance and conflict indicators are substantially affected by growth volatility. Table 1 presents differences between sample averages during growth accelerations and collapses for key governance and conflict indicators. The World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) score, a broad measure of policy and institutional performance, is lower during decelerations. Correlation coefficients (not reported) between the probability of growth acceleration and deceleration and CPIA indicator confirm that countries that experience more economic collapses have lower CPIA scores.

The U.S. sub-prime crisis triggered a financial market meltdown which, in turn, has led to a global recession. These developments are already having a significant, negative effect on African economic growth (the latest World Economic Outlook  projects Africa’s growth rate in 2009 at 3.5 percent, down from 5.4 percent in 2008.) Drawing on the work of Jorge Arbache and John Page, I did the following calculation: If Africa experiences a growth deceleration that is typical of the average deceleration of the past, the infant mortality rate will rise by about 28 per thousand (see Table). Given that there are 28 million births a year in Africa, this translates to over 700,000 additional babies dying before their first birthday.

My colleague Matthias Lundberg did a somewhat different analysis by estimating the elasticity of infant mortality with respect to income worldwide, and then plugging in the IMF’s most recent forecasts for global income growth. He obtains an estimate for increases in infant deaths worldwide of 200,000-400,000 per year.

Needless to say, the two estimates represent different methods and even different data sources. The most important difference is that the Arbache-Page calculation is based on a particular definition of a growth deceleration (sometimes referred to as a growth collapse)—namely that the four-year forward moving average growth and per capita income are less than the four-year backward moving average—which Africa may experience but has not yet experienced from the global crisis. Meanwhile, Matthias’ calculation is looking at marginal changes in income and the association with infant mortality.