Tracking Central African Republic’s Future Progress towards Achieving Substantial Reduction of under Five Mortality By 2030

This study uses annual time series data on under five mortality rate (U5MR) for the Central African Republic from 1960 to 2020 to predict future trends of U5MR over the period 2021 to 2030. Residuals and forecast evaluation statistics indicate that Holt’s linear model is stable in forecasting U5MR in Central African Republic. Optimal values of smoothing constants α and β are 0.9 and 0.2 respectively based on minimum MSE. The exponential smoothing model projections indicate that annual U5MR will decline but still remain high throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, health authorities in the Central African Republic are encouraged to focus on addressing major drivers of under-five mortality in the country and allocate more resources to the maternal and child health program.