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Poverty and inequality represent major policy syndromes that are relevant in the achievement of most United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), while economic growth is also essential for the achievement of attendant SDGs. This study extends existing literature by assessing the conditional influence of poverty, income inequality, and severity of poverty on economic growth. The focus is on 42 countries in SSA with data from 1980 to 2019. The Gini index is used to measure income inequality. Poverty is measured in terms of the poverty headcount ratio, while the severity of poverty is computed as the squared of the poverty gap index. The empirical evidence is based on quantile regressions to assess how income inequality and poverty dynamics affect economic growth throughout the conditional distribution of economic growth. Our main finding shows that the negative response of economic growth to poverty is a decreasing function of economic growth. In other words, the incidence of poverty in reducing economic growth decreases with increasing levels of economic growth. In two specifications, the effect of inequality is negative in bottom quantiles and positive in top quantiles of the conditional distribution of economic growth. Policy implications are discussed, especially as it pertains to (1) the relevance of poverty in mitigating economic growth in SSA contingent on initial levels of economic growth and (2) comparative incidences of poverty and inequality in affecting economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has shocked the global energy system. It has resulted in tremendous uncertainty and diminished the recent advances to increase access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy—an objective preserved in the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG-7). According to the IEA, attaining universal electricity access in Africa in line with SDG-7 entails annual investments of approximately $20 billion over the next decade. Given the sizeable magnitudes involved, it is inevitable that energy projects will need to rely on richer nations for energy aid. This paper explores the linkages between energy-related external aid, carbon emissions, per capita GDP, and electricity access for a sample of 30 low-income SSA countries over 1995 to 2016. Our econometric analysis reveals that while all types of energy aid facilitate economic growth in the long run, there is no direct impact of energy-related aid on electricity access. However, an increase in per capita GDP is positively associated with electricity access in both rural and urban areas. We also find that energy-related aid helps mitigate carbon emissions as well as contribute to GDP. Taken together, our results suggest that enhanced energy-related aid to low-income SSA countries can directly facilitate climate compatible growth and indirectly impel improvements in electricity access thereby helping with poverty reduction. We also advocate regional cooperation among SSA countries as a collective effort to confront shared energy challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty alleviation has been positioned high on the international development agenda following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. African countries initiated various missions to establish sustained economic growth by increasing productivity with an ultimate goal of poverty reduction. The significance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in poverty reduction and employment generation is widely acknowledged. Despite the high failure rate amongst SMEs, particularly in the African context, some are striving with excellent results and are demonstrating signs of growth, innovation and sustainability. This paper explores the development of SMEs as a strategic measure for job creation in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the role of SMEs in achieving sustainable employment in Africa. This study will benefit governments in Africa, getting them to focus on the development of the SMEs, and guiding them on how best to integrate SME development to achieve poverty alleviation. The recommendations proposed in this study may be helpful in policy formulation, business operation and regulatory practice for sustainable growth and development in the sub-Saharan African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 emphasizes the need for economies around the world to double their efforts in energy efficiency improvements. This is because improvements in energy efficiency can trigger economic growth and considered as one of the 'green' growth strategies due to its carbon free content. To this end, some empirical studies have investigated the nexus between economic growth and energy efficiency, but the effects of the latter on financial indicators have not been sufficiently studied in the literature, at least in developing economies like Africa. This study examines the effect of energy efficiency improvements on commercial bank profitability under different political regimes (i.e., autocratic and democratic political regimes); something previous literature had neglected. The study uses panel data, consisting of 43 African countries and the simultaneous System Generalized Method of Moments. We found that energy efficiency improvement is more likely to induce higher bank profitability in political institutions with the characteristics of centralization of power compared with those with decentralization of power. Furthermore, for the banking sector, the findings suggest that energy utilization behavior of clients should be included in the loan or credit valuation process. For the government, the agenda of energy efficiency should be aggressively pursued while taking cognizance of creating a political environment that weans itself from a 'grandfathering' behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]