Examining the Impact of Urbanization on Environmental Quality in Africa Within the Framework of Sustainable Development

This study explores the causal relationship between urbanization and CO₂ emissions across Africa from 2000 to 2022, while employing the STIRPAT framework. Stationarity tests including Levin-Lin-Chu and Im-Pesaran-Shin are conducted at both levels and first differences, Pedroni and Kao test are used to conduct cointegration tests. Additionally, pairwise Granger causality tests are used to analyze the directionality of the causal links between variables. DOLS and FMOLS are used for econometric analysis. The main result show that urban growth is a significant contributor of CO₂ emissions in Africa. Quantile regression technique is use to validate the consistency of these results across different emission levels, and the findings align with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. This study adds to the growing body of literature on environmental sustainability in Africa and offers evidence based policy recommendations to support the 2030 agenda of the United Nations on sustainable development. JEL Classification : C23, Q53, Q56, R11