Impact of Water Scarcity on Education Outcomes: Evidence from 26 African Countries

Water scarcity could challenge the realisation of universal primary and secondary attainment in developing countries especially Africa. This endangers an already fragile human capital and economic development in the region. Multinomial logistic framework was employed to examine the impact of water scarcity on education outcomes using data from MICS and DHS across 26 African countries. We focus on the possible mechanism of parental involvement in the water scarcity and education nexus. We find that an estimated 4.63 million and 1.5 million children were not attending and dropped out in the region, respectively. At the country level, water scarcity significantly impacted education outcomes in majority of countries; the direction, however, varies across countries. Overall, children in household without water scarcity significant increase attending and decrease not attending by 1.5% in the region. The interaction effects of household without water scarcity with improved sanitation and no child labour offer the best protective effect on education outcomes. We concluded that water scarcity has adverse effects on parental involvement which in turn is associated with lower rate of dropout and not attending school and higher rate of attending school among children. The results underscore the need for policies and international donors to prioritise the simultaneous acceleration of the achievement of SDG Goal 6.1, 6.2 by 2030 and promote collaboration between educators and parents on strategies that are genuinely inclusive with the intention to enhance sustainable parent participation in their children’s educational journey.