Tracking Lesotho’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 for Lesotho from 1960 to 2021 to predict future trends of U5MR over the period 2021 to 2030. Residuals and forecast evaluation criteria indicate that the applied model is stable in forecasting U5MR. The ANN (12, 12, 1) projections indicated that U5MR will increase and remain very high throughout the out of sample period. Therefore, we implore the government of Lesotho to focus on channeling more resources to the maternal and child health (MNCH) program to ensure availability of adequate medical supplies and staff at all levels of healthcare.