Modeling the role of institutions on poverty and environmental sustainability: a panel analysis for British and French ex-colonies in Africa

The United Nations has placed substantial emphasis on environmental sustainability. It maintains that issues such as environmental degradation and climate change are among the major hurdles to achieving sustainable development goals in Sub-Saharan Africa. This makes enhancing environmental quality a crucial factor at a universal level. In this regard, this research seeks to address this policy void by examining the role of institutions on environment and poverty in 26 British and French ex-colonies from 2002 to 2018. The relationships between the variables (long-run and short-run effects) are examined using the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation technique. The results revealed that institutions have a significant positive relationship with poverty in British and French ex-colonies and thus raise the poverty rate in these countries, while renewable energy mitigates this effect. In addition, while institution quality enhances environmental sustainability in the French ex-colonies, it instead advances environmental degradation in their British counterparts. These findings therefore support the claim that colonial arrangements have long-term consequences for institutions and economic development in their ex-colonies. As a policy recommendation, the study prescribes strengthening institutional quality to alleviate poverty and augment ecological sustainability.