Evaluating HIV/Aids prevalence and sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa: the role of health expenditure

BACKGROUND: The sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) present the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS worldwide; resulting to a significant development challenges at country, region and global level. The previous studies explain at least in part, the impact of the epidemic, however the impact of HIV/AIDS in long-term economic behavior were not yet clear. There is clearly few or absence of studies on the impact of the impact of the epidemic on sustainable development. OBJECTIVE: This study focused on macroeconomic analysis of the HIV/AIDS impact on sustainable development in SSA. METHODS: The study utilized a panel dataset covering 23 countries from 1993 until 2016, and employed Panel ARDL/PMG. RESULT: Our findings reveals a stable long-run relationship between sustainable development and HIV/AIDS prevalence. The error correction coefficient was statistically significant and conclude that HIV/AIDS prevalence has long-run impact on sustainable development. CONCLUSION: The main implication of our study is that, achieving a sustainable development in the presence of high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in SSA is very challenging and as such, the responsiveness of HIV/AIDS to sustainable development should be maintained at minimum which would require more efforts on HIV/AIDS control programs and increase health expenditure.