Advancing Sustainable Development: Addressing Energy Poverty in West Africa Through Green Financing, Technological Innovation and Economic Empowerment

Energy poverty is a new issue in the World and the developing nations are not an exception. The West African nations exhibit serious problems on the accessibility and affordability of energy in rural areas and in urban areas. The major concern is the conventional fuels that they widely use as alternatives once faced with energy access problems. These fuels damages the surroundings and deteriorates the health systems of people. Therefore, this study is motivated in addressing the energy poverty issues in the West African nations and present vigorous mechanisms that are essential in solving this crisis. The lack of studies and the lack of robust policies informing ways that can adopted to lower energy poverty in this region, requires new contemporary studies to present. Thus, this study examines the interplay of green finance, income, and technology in reducing energy poverty in the West African nations. The fourteen West African nations are therefore examined and their data for the period 2004 to 2020 is used. Data analysis methodologies adopted ensures the employment of ‘Methods of Moments Quantile Regression’ technique to ensure problems of ‘cross-sectional dependence’ and ‘heterogeneity’ are overcome. Our findings shows that energy poverty in the West African nations could be lowered with advancements in technology, utilisation of green finance and improvements in the income levels in this region. The income generated from the natural resources and foreign direct investment inflows fails to reduce energy poverty and worsens it in this region. Therefore, we show that improvements in the institutional quality and the adoption of green technological tools are key in reducing energy poverty.