<p>The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of external health spending on the various forms of mortality in 68 low- and lower-middle income countries during the period 2002–2021 using the Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors approach that takes care of cross-sectional dependence, and checking for robustness by employing the two-step Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) that addresses endogeneity. Overall, there is a significant direct effect of external spending on all forms of mortality rate, including the under-5, infant, neonatal, maternal and overall mortality rates. A deeper analysis further reveals that Urbanization significantly compliment this relationship. Additionally, data provides evidence of the reducing role of government, private, out-of-pocket and total current expenditures in reducing mortality, with public health spending exhibiting the largest impact just as out-of-pocket expenditure constitutes the smallest influence. Generally, in terms of magnitude, the maternal mortality rate gains most from the external financing as well as other forms of expenditure while the neo-natal mortality rates benefit the least. Additionally, the study reveals that while the female fertility rate increases mortality rate, Urbanization, corruption control measures, immunization and per capita GDP reduce each of the mortality rates under analysis. Policy implications are discussed.</p>