Exploring Sustainable Development in the Sub-Saharan African Region: The Role of Economic Discomfort

As per the Sustainable Development Report-2023, the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region is the most economically deprived region, with the Sustainable Development Goals score ranking at the bottom among all 193 United Nations member countries. The role of economic discomfort (the summation of inflation and unemployment) in sustainable development (SD) is understudied in the context of SSA. This study is an effort to empirically explore the role of economic discomfort in SD for 37 SSA economies using 20 years of data. Results reveal that inflation and unemployment have a negative impact, suggesting that the economic discomfort index is detrimental to SD. Other factors, such as financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI), innovation, population growth, and institutional quality, are instrumental in promoting SD in SSA. This study concludes that controlling economic discomfort is a “necessary but not a sufficient condition” for achieving SD in SSA. Therefore, effective policy measures are required to control inflation by ensuring the desired supply of goods and creating more jobs through prudent monetary and fiscal policy adoption, which are necessary for SD. To boost productivity and promote sustainable development, the selected economies must focus on enhancing foreign investment, establishing financial sector development, and investing in research and development activities. JEL Codes : E31; E24; Q01; N37