Digital Economy, Energy and Sustainability

Is sub-Saharan Africa’s growth a quality growth (Quality growth implies growth that creates a dynamic economy while enhancing health, being good stewards of natural resources, and fostering equal opportunity to reduce poverty.)? Does the growth engender sustainable development? In a panel of 40 sub-Saharan African countries over thirty years, the study investigated the quality of SSA’s growth along different sectors to reduce the level of poverty. The preliminary results indicate that the poverty-reducing effectiveness of growth varies considerably across sectors, across space, and over time. The study found that the services sector has a more poverty-reducing effect than growth in the agriculture or manufacturing industries. The result is tenable since these sectors (manufacturing and agricultural sectors), particularly in developing countries, are characterized by the excessive utilization of non-renewable sources of energy (such as wood fuels, petroleum, coal, and biofuel) in their operations, thereby increasing carbon emissions. The increase in carbon emissions creates extreme weather, which in turn damages homes and businesses. This can prevent the poor from escaping poverty, and it is often the trigger that tips the vulnerable into poverty. The results suggest that to engender sustainable development, reduce poverty, and promote green growth economy in the region, governments, and policymakers in SSA must redirect the economy toward a knowledge-based economy by expanding the services sector.

This paper analyzes the association between financial inclusion and environmental sustainability. The study uses Pearson correlation analysis to analyze the association between financial inclusion and environmental sustainability. The level of financial inclusion was measured using two supply-side financial inclusion indicators: the number of ATMs per 100,000 adults and the number of bank branches per 100,000 adults. Environmental sustainability was measured using two indicators: environmental policy stringency index and the environmentally adjusted multifactor productivity growth index. The study finds that financial inclusion is positively associated with environmental sustainability particularly among non-EU countries. The result implies that financial inclusion programs and efforts in non-EU countries complement environmental sustainability efforts toward achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). The findings also reveal a significant and negative association between environmental policy stringency and environmentally adjusted multifactor productivity growth particularly among EU member-countries and European countries.

There is much interest in central bank digital currency (CBDC) among central banks around the world. African countries have also joined the league of nations that are conducting research into CBDC. The launch of the eNaira CBDC in Nigeria has drawn substantial interest from observers around the world, including from central banks. The eNaira CBDC is envisaged to bring many benefits, and financial inclusion is considered to be one of such benefits. This paper explores the eNaira CBDC and its potential to increase the level of financial inclusion in Nigeria.

The first way to think about sustainable development (SD) is how economic, social, environmental, and government systems interact. The second way to think about it is to identify goals for society. Then, we need to get into that complexity. Taking urgent action on climate change is one of this complexity. It is an SD target by 2030 but is also a Paris Agreement target oriented toward climate neutrality by 2050. However, achieving these goals requires access to significant resources to finance mitigation and adaptation measures, resources identified as climate finance, one of the several dimensions of green finance. Several barriers exist to how public and private climate finance are made available and accessed. This paper discusses financial instruments to sustain climate action and the latest trends in climate project financing in developing countries, emphasizing the MENA countries, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. The work finds various domestic and foreign funds available for climate action initiatives in emerging countries, but they need an integrated climate project financing strategy. A collaborative effort involving all actors and mobilizing all resources in an integrated manner would allow countries to finance the investments they need to fight climate change.

The advancement of human life quality, sustainable development, and socioeconomic growth all depend heavily on energy. The need for energy will rise in the future decades due to the expansion of the global population and economic activity. Consequently, the transition to sustainable energy exploitation became a crucial priority for the Algerian government. This research describes a review of the principal indicators of environmental performance in Algeria for the period 2005–2019. As a result, this article offers helpful information to present the state of renewable energy through a few environmental performance indicators, which are regarded as a scientific platform for researchers and commercial businesses looking for appropriate solutions to advance the field of renewable energy.

The actual tendencies toward circular economy aim to realize a set of achievements favoring sustainable development. Most countries seek to shift to this new model. However, this process seems to be more complicated for developing countries, as in the case of Algeria. In this paper, we will present the various circular economic strategies and enumerate Algeria's obstacles and challenges, which must be invoked to establish the rules of sustainability that will pave the way toward the transition into a circular economy.

Maize is a staple food in Tanzania, which contributes 33% of calories to residents; its production improves farmers’ income, mainly in rural settings. Maize farming employs 4.5 million smallholder farmers whose output contributes over 90% of total maize production in the country. Despite this vital role of maize in Tanzania, the national’s maize productivity is 1.5 t/ha, far below its potential productivity of 7.5 t/ha. Various efforts to tackle the low productivity of maize in the country include improved agronomic practices, devised government policies, and several scientific innovations. However, maize farming has not attained its maximum productivity potential. This book chapter advocates commercialization of bee pollination in maize farming as an additional input to improve maize productivity and increase economic gains among smallholder farmers in Tanzania. The integration of bee pollination has been useful in increasing the productivity of different cereal crops since the mid-1970s in the United States, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe.

This paper aims to identify the factors that contribute the most to the change in Tunisian energy-induced carbon emissions during the 1990–2012 period. To that end, an LMDI decomposition analysis is applied on five final energy-use sectors: industry, agriculture, transport, tertiary, and the residential sector. The results indicate that GDP growth is the main factor driving the growth of CO₂ emissions, while the reduction in energy intensity and structure effects contributes to reducing CO₂ emissions in the economic sectors (industry, transport, agriculture, and tertiary). For the residential sector, a change in energy intensity is the main driving force behind the change in CO₂ emissions. A better understanding of energy-induced CO₂ emissions by all sectors, how they change, and the sources of these changes would have important policy implications in reducing CO₂ emissions and reaching the country's targeted 1.5–2 °C global levels. To the author, no study has undertaken a decomposition analysis of energy-induced carbon emissions of both the economic and residential sectors by examining detailed sector-specific raw data.

A field experiment was carried out over 5 years on an Alfisol in Southwestern Nigeria. This was intended to determine the effect of biochar and compost on soil properties, the yield of maize and carbon sequestered over the same period. There were seven experimental variables, namely; maize cobs biochar (100% MCB), maize stovers biochar (100% MSB), cow dung biochar (100% CDB), poultry droppings biochar (100% PTB), an equal combination of cow dung compost and biochar (50% CDC + 50% CDB), an equal combination of poultry droppings compost and biochar (50% PTC + 50% PTB), and zero treatment application served as control. Each variable was replicated three times to give a total of 21 plots. The highest grain yield of maize, 2.71 t ha⁻¹ and the least, 0.28 t ha⁻¹, was obtained with PTC/PTB and zero treatment applications for the 5th cultivation. The PTC/PTB gave the highest gradual increase in soil pH, organic C, total N, available P and cation exchange capacity; these properties were reduced for zero application with yearly cultivation. During the study, the PTC/PTB sequestered highest 18.97 and 11.46 t C ha-1 yr-1 on the topsoil and subsoil. We concluded that the carbon captured enhanced its buildup, maize yield and soil properties.