Does Energy Poverty Hinder Human Capital Development in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between energy poverty and human capital development across 46 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2023. Employing panel cointegration techniques and an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Error Correction Model (ECM), the analysis controls for key socioeconomic and institutional factors, including GDP per capita, urbanisation, government effectiveness, and population growth. Results reveal a significant long-run adverse effect of energy poverty on human capital, highlighting the detrimental impact of inadequate access to modern energy on education and health outcomes. Government effectiveness emerges as a positive driver of human capital, reinforcing the role of institutional quality in this regard. While the short-run effects of energy poverty are statistically insignificant, the error correction term confirms a strong adjustment towards the long-run equilibrium. Robustness checks, which address cross-sectional dependence and heteroskedasticity, validate the stability of the findings. These results underscore the critical importance of addressing energy deprivation alongside improving governance to foster sustainable human capital development in Sub-Saharan Africa.