The African Development Bank, Organized Hypocrisy, and Maternal Mortality

Abstract

We draw on the theory of organized hypocrisy and examine how different forms of lending by the African Development Bank affect maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. We do so by using a two-way fixed effects model for a sample of 33 Sub-Saharan African nations from 1990 to 2010. We find that the bank's structural adjustment lending in the health sector is associated with increased maternal mortality, and its reproductive health investment lending is associated with decreased maternal mortality, consistent with the organized hypocrisy approach. These findings remain stable and consistent even when controlling for World Bank lending and other relevant control variables. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for global health and development.