Promoting environmental sustainability in Africa: evidence from governance synergy

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.