The Future Burden of Adolescent Births in Angola Will Remain Very High: Empirical Evidence from the Artificial Neural Network Technique

This study uses annual time series data on adolescent fertility rate for Angola from 1960 to 2020 to predict future trends of adolescent fertility rates over the period 2021 to 2030. The forecast evaluation criteria of the applied model indicate that the ANN (12, 12, 1) model is stable. The neural network model projections revealed that adolescent fertility will remain very high throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, we urge the Angolan government to allocate more resources towards Sexual and reproductive health services, strictly enforce laws that safeguard sexual and reproductive health rights of adolescent girls and women, promote girl child education and create a youth fund to empower youths across the country in order to urgently address high adolescent birth rates that have contributed significantly to adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes.