Promoting environmental sustainability in Africa: evidence from governance synergy

ABSTRACT

Following the growing body of the literature assessing the governance and environmental sustainability nexus, the present study complements the extant literature by assessing how environmental sustainability can be promoted by means of policies that entail the simultaneous implementation of six governance dynamics, notably, political governance (political stability/ no violence and ‘voice & accountability’), economic governance (government effectiveness and regulatory quality) and institutional governance (corruption-control and the rule of law). The study focuses on 44 African countries for the period 2000 to 2020 and the empirical evidence is based on the generalized method of moments (GMM). Our findings indicate that the individual indicators of governance exert a positive influence on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. However, the combined or composite governance indicator yields a negative effect on CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, economic growth, urbanization, trade and foreign investment stir CO₂ emissions meanwhile, information and communication technology such as mobile phone subscriptions and internet penetration have the opposite effect. Policy implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• CO₂ emissions
• ICT
• governance
• urbanization
• GMM model

JEL CLASSIFICATIONS:

• C33
• C52
• 038
• 040
• 055

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the editor and reviewers for constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Awa Traoré

Dr. Awa Traore is a teacher-researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Management (FASEG), Cheikh Anta Diop University(UCAD), Dakar. She holds a PhD in Economics from Orleans University (France) and Gaston Berger Saint-Louis University (Senegal). Her research focuses on the digital economy, technological innovation and technological catch-up in developing countries, especially in Africa. She is also the Coordinator of the Digital Economy, Knowledge and Innovation research team at the Center for Applied Economic Research (CREA) at Dakar's Cheikh Anta Diop University. She has published peer reviewed articles on information and communication technology and innovation in international publication outlets.

Cheikh T. Ndour

Dr. Cheikh T. Ndour is an economist with over ten years experience in research and practice in public administration in the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Senegal. He is a lecturer at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, specializes in environmental economics and has published a dozen scientific articles in this field. His strengths lie in developing research projects that are useful for decision-making. He took part in drawing-up the last-two national planning documents, which perfectly integrate natural resource management and environmental sustainability.

Simplice A. Asongu

Professor Simplice Asongu holds a PhD from Oxford Brookes University and is currently the Lead Economist and Director of the African Governance and Development Institute (Yaoundé, Cameroon); Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg (Johannesburg, South Africa), the Lead Economist and Director of the European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (Liège, Belgium) and Lead Economist and Co-director of “Centre de Recherche pour le Développement Economique” (Bangui, Central African Republic). He is also a: Senior Research Fellow at the Africa Growth Institute (Cape Town, South Africa); PhD Supervisor at Covenant University (Ota, Nigeria), the University of Ghana (Accra, Ghana); Antioch University (Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Midwest, New England, Seattle, USA) and Midlands State University (Gweru, Zimbabwe); DBA Supervisor at Management College of Southern Africa (Durban, South Africa) and Research Associate at the Research Network Africa (Gaborone, Botswana), University of South Africa (Pretoria, South Africa), University of Buea (Buea, Cameroon) and Oxford Brookes University (Oxford, UK). He is also Associate Editor in some journals including the Journal of Economic Surveys, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, the Journal of African Business and the African Journal of Economic and Management Studies.