Human Development - Environment Nexus: Experience from Sub Saharan Africa, 2020.

Abstract

In the course of achieving economic growth and human development, usually, human activities have been at the centre of environmental destruction. Understanding the nexus between human development and the environment is crucial for sustainable human welfare. This study assesses the determinants of human development from an environmental perspective. It focuses on CO2 emission and access to clean every (Electricity) as the major environmental determinants of human development in Sub Saharan African (SSA). The study employs panel secondary data from 35 SSA countries for a period of 19 years (2000 - 2018). In the analysis, the fixed effect regression was conducted to estimate the relationship between the study variables. The key results from the analysis showed that a 1% increase in CO2 emissions increases human development by 0.9%. This is likely because most of the SSA countries are developing countries; they are likely striving to achieve human development at the expense of the environment and the level of pollution has not yet reached the extent of deteriorating human development. It was also found that a 1% increase in the population which has access to clean energy increases human development by 15.8%. From this, it can again be concluded that access to clean energy is fuel for human development. The study thus comes out with two major recommendations. The first is that while striving to achieve human development in the SSA, it is not necessary to set a halt to the levels of CO2 emissions since the level of pollution is still not limiting human development. However, more human development efforts should focus on using cleaner technologies to achieve a quicker “U” turn in the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). The second recommendation is that the SSA countries should increase efforts in creating accessibility to cleaner energy sources to fuel sustainable human development.