Access to improved water, human capital and economic activity in Africa

This paper examines the correlation between access to improved water, human capital and economic activity in Africa. It shows that countries with higher access to improved water tend to have lower mortality rate than those with lower access to improved water even they have the same per capita GDP, population characteristics and other time-invariant characteristics. One percentage point increase in the proportion of population accessing improved water is associated with a decrease of 0.45 and 0.89 in the mortality rate (calculated as per mil). Although there is a very small correlation between the access to improved water and GDP per capita, there is a strong correlation between the access to improved water and poverty. Countries with higher proportion of population with access to improved water are more likely to have lower poverty