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Crowdfunding in Africa is unique due to the unstable but budding macro-environment that enables offline backer contribution that fosters project success. This paper explores the reward-based crowdfunding macro-environment factors that motivate and demotivate backer contribution towards crowdfunding with a focus on Information Communication Technology Infrastructure, Social Capital, and Backer Identity fostered by the Geographical Location. We also offer solutions for improving rewards-based crowdfunding in Africa to ensure social and economic sustainability. The results of our predictive analysis reflect that creativity-oriented projects are the project categories with the highest success rate in Africa. The findings of this paper also shed light on the fact that the success of crowdfunding projects in Sub-Saharan Africa hinges on a type of hybrid model involving the "offline" community of backers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unflinching upsurge in global warming has put the world into a state of disarray, and policymakers are not sure of what the future holds for the ecosystem. To get the global environment back on track of sustainability, efforts are relentlessly emanating from both developed and developing economies to identify the hindering and enhancing factors. Given the preceding narratives, this paper investigates the tripartite impacts of renewable and nonrenewable energy, trade openness, and institutions on sustainable environment in 54 African countries from 1996 to 2019. The study employs the two-step system generalized methods of moment (SYS-GMM) in estimating the effects of the regressors on four indicators of sustainable environment. Six findings are prominent from the study. First, nonrenewable energy (NRE) and trade openness (TO) hinder sustainable environment, while renewable energy enhances it. Second, the unconditional impacts of institutions drive the path to a sustainable environment. Third, the interaction of institutions with NRE and TO hinders sustainable environment. However, after conducting institutional enhancement estimations, the interactive terms became supportive of sustainable environment. Fourth, the thresholds are policy-relevant across the specifications. Specifically, a 31.11% utilization of nonrenewable energy and 43.75% openness to trade contribute to a sustainable environment. Sixth, the impacts of economic growth and its square empirically support the inverted U-shaped EKC. This study suggests the adoption of carbon-taxing on nonrenewable energy products, price-subsidization for renewable energy goods and services, and institutional quality reforms as pathways towards achieving a sustainable environment in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change. Climate and sustainability-linked bonds can provide funding to African governments and corporations for projects that help to mitigate climate change, combat biodiversity loss, and foster sustainable development. However, less than 0.3% of the global environmental, social, governance (ESG) bond issuance volume is devoted to projects in Africa. Based on the entire universe of 107 African ESG bonds from 42 governmental and corporate issuers over the period 2010–2023, this paper establishes that ESG bonds provide benefits to both issuers and investors in terms of lower spreads and volatility. Our econometric results highlight that greenwashing is a valid concern for investors in African ESG bonds and certification of ESG bonds makes a difference vis-à-vis the self-labeling of green bonds. Non-certified ESG bonds do not offer similar benefits compared to certified ones. Green macro-financial policy and suitable regulation to prevent greenwashing can foster African ESG-bond markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically investigate the effect of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on access to improved water sources and sanitation services in Africa. ICT is measured through the number of mobile phone subscribers per 100 and the Internet penetration rate. The sample consists of 44 African countries with data spanning between the 2000 and 2018 periods. The results from the system GMM methodology reveal firstly that ICTs have a significant enhancing effect on access to improved water sources. Secondly, the effect on access to improved sanitation services is detrimental. These results are robust in both urban and rural areas. Thirdly, education is the main channel through which these effects are modulated producing positive net effects for water services and negative net effects for sanitation services. As policy implications, digital development towards water monitoring and follow-up is encouraged, and the educational system digitalised. Moreover, domestic finance should be developed towards providing funds for investment in water and sanitation projects instead of relying on external debts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality has become an issue of significant concern in Africa. And to provide insights into the evolution of inequality in the region, this paper investigates the convergence in income inequality across African countries. We employed a balanced panel of 34 countries covering from 2000 to 2014 and used the Gini index to represent income inequality in the study. The empirical results show a lack of support for overall convergence in income inequality, which means dispersion in income inequality increased over time across countries in the region. However, because convergence might still be found within the groups of countries with similar characteristics when overall convergence cannot be achieved, we further employed the club clustering algorithm to check whether club convergence exists. Our results show that income inequality converges into five convergence clubs and a group of divergence countries. And the evidence of club convergence means disparities in income inequality declined over time across countries within the club. The implication is that specific interventions targeting countries within each convergence club might be required to address the region's inequality problem to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This includes employing direct taxes, transfers, or a combination to reduce African income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social cohesion has recently gained increasing attention in academic and policy circles. Apart from being a necessary feature of stable societies per se, social cohesion is also a key factor for sustainable economic development. One potential means through which social cohesion could foster economic development is by enhancing financial development. In this paper, I examine whether social cohesion is significantly associated with firms' access to finance in Africa. To this end, I use a recently constructed dataset on social cohesion in Africa, which contains indices for the three pillars of social cohesion – trust, inclusive identity and cooperation for the common good. Combining this dataset with that of the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, I build a sample which covers more than 12,600 firms and 27 African countries. The results show that all three components of social cohesion are positively associated with at least one measure of firms' access to external finance. In particular, trust – but not inclusive identity and cooperation for the common good – is significantly associated with the likelihood that firms have a checking or savings account, or are financially constrained. When we measure access to finance with respect to having a line of credit or a loan from a financial institution, all the three pillars of social cohesion, including inclusive identity and cooperation for the common good, are related to access to finance. The results are robust to addressing endogeneity concerns using a heteroskedasticity-based identification strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, which threatens food security, ecosystem protection and restoration initiatives, and fresh water resources availability and quality. Groundwater largely contributes to the mitigation of climate change effects by offering short- to long-term transient water storage. However, groundwater storage remains extremely difficult to monitor. In this paper, we review the strengths and weaknesses of satellite remote sensing techniques for addressing groundwater quantity issues with a focus on GRACE space gravimetry, as well as concepts to combine satellite observations with numerical models and ground observations. One particular focus is the quantification of changes in groundwater resources in the different climatic regions of Africa and the discussion of possible climatic and anthropogenic drivers. We include a thorough literature review on studies that use satellite observations for groundwater research in Africa. Finally, we identify gaps in research and possible future directions for employing satellite remote sensing to groundwater monitoring and management on the African continent. Article Highlights: Overview on the distribution and characteristics of African groundwater resources including future projections Combination of satellite and in situ observations with numerical models allows us to obtain a synoptic view of groundwater-related processes Summary of current concepts and achievements of satellite remote sensing-based groundwater monitoring and decision making over Africa [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The costs due to climate change have been increasing day by day. In addition to the risk of losing our planet's natural assets due to the increasing destructiveness of climate-related natural disasters and extreme climate events, we are also faced with grave economic risks. For this reason, researchers have recently focused on environmental issues. Nevertheless, they generally have investigated developed countries and ignored developing and least developed countries such as African countries. The United Nations (2015) report highlights that African countries should be specially investigated. Hence, the paper analyzes whether the ecological footprint in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) converges for the period from 1961 to 2017. We employ Bahmani-Oskooee et al.'s (2014) panel unit root test with sharp and smooth breaks. The empirical findings demonstrate that the ecological footprint is stationary in ECCAS and ECOWAS. Stated in other words, the ecological footprint in these countries converges. Therefore, policymakers could implement similar policies to reduce the ecological footprint in these countries. This policy framework paves the way for an effective sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a call on policy makers in the African continent to formulate and implement initiatives that help to realise some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), due to the low performance of the continent in terms of meeting the targets of the SDGs. Because of this, the study sought to investigate how banks' financial outreach and intermediation contribute to sustainable development in the continent. Information was collected on 34 African economies for a period of 11 years spanning from 2010 to 2020. The study employed the two-step system generalised method of moments technique to estimate the findings. It was discovered that financial outreach has a significant positive and negative relationship with sustainable development, depending on the indicator used to measure outreach. On various dimensions, financial outreach had a negative influence on carbon dioxide emissions, a positive impact on economic sustainability, and an inverse relationship with social sustainability. It was also revealed that financial innovation has a significant negative link with sustainable development in Africa. Additionally, the findings revealed that both financial outreach and innovation serve as moderating variables in the finance/development nexus. The study recommends that governments and policy makers in various African countries work together with financial service providers to ensure fair, flexible, and alluring interest rates on loans to the underprivileged, disadvantaged ones in society, and vulnerable businesses to smooth their consumption and boost their businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the environmental impacts of the energy mix of mainly oil-producing African nations. The economic aspects of decarbonization prospects were also viewed from the perspectives of fossil energy dependence among the countries. More insights on the impacts of energy mix on decarbonization prospects were also provided on a country-specific analysis basis via the application of second-generation econometric techniques in assessing carbon emission levels across the countries between 1990 and 2015. From the results, only renewable resources proved to be a significant decarbonization tool among the understudied oil-rich economies. Moreover, the consequences of the trio of fossil fuel consumption, income growth, and globalization are diametrically opposed to achieving decarbonization as the rise in their usage significantly acts as pollutant-inducing tools. The validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) conjecture was also upheld for the combined analysis of the panel countries. The study thus opined that the reduction in conventional energy dependence will enhance environmental quality. Consequently, given the advantages of the geographical locations of these countries in Africa, concerted strategies for more investment in clean renewable energy sources like solar and wind were suggested to policymakers among other recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study identifies investment in Africa's cultural and creative industries (CCIs) as one of the strategic moves in the right direction for achieving sustainable development across the African continent. Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) offer an alternative approach to development through their wealth creation potential, socioeconomic development, employment opportunities, and promotion of cultural diversity. Nevertheless, CCIs are yet to feature categorically as a development strategy, owing to their many challenges, as indicated by the study. The study submits that partnerships under the Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) could offer an alternative source of mobilizing support for CCIs, as the BRI is a development framework with robust financing, infrastructure, and human resources development. However, it will require the pragmatic support of policymakers to leverage BRI and boost the expansion of CCIs in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of the different dimensions of globalization on sustainable development with the moderating role of financial development in the relationship between globalization (using overall globalization) and sustainable development in 22 African countries. To ensure the robustness of the estimated results, the study applies both the static (fixed-effects) and dynamic model (system generalized method of moments, SYGMM) in achieving the study's objective. It is of interest to note that the study conducts a regional analysis on the selected countries using random- and fixed-effects models. The dynamic panel results show that political globalization has a positive impact on sustainable development in the selected African countries, while economic and social globalization negatively influence sustainable development in the sampled countries. Overall globalization has a positive but insignificant effect on sustainable development. In examining the role of financial development, as a moderator, in the globalization-sustainable development nexus, the findings reveal that the interactive effect of financial development and globalization on sustainable development is negative. This suggests that financial development interacts with the globalization index to weaken the impact of the latter on sustainable development. In other words, the weak financial sector in the continent constitutes a leakage that drains the positive impact of globalization on sustainable development in African countries. Thus, the study recommends that African leaders should consciously implement policies that will deepen the current globalization level in the continent to fully enjoy the dividends of globalization in the attainment of sustainable development goals in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]