Sustainable development amidst technological innovation and tourism activities in sub-Saharan Africa

Following global debate on clean and responsible access to energy (electricity), access to recreation (tourism), technological innovation, and economic growth for sustainable development as captured by the Human Development Index (HDI), the present study is motivated by the inconclusive guidance found in the literature on technology, tourism industry, and energy. This study adopts the Pedroni residual cointegration test to investigate the cointegration properties of the variables under consideration, while the mean group (MG), dynamic fixed effect (DFE), and the pooled mean group (PMG) estimators are employed for simultaneous short- and long-run analysis. The study is based on annual frequency data from 1995 to 2016 with the adoption of panel analysis to show that technological innovation, tourism development, and access to electricity affected the HDI significantly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the investigated study period. This is instructive for policymakers, as the highlighted sectors are good predictors of sustainable development. Furthermore, consolidating the results that tourism development, electricity access, and technological innovation improves economic development. On the other hand, the growth-induced, HDI-fitted model reflects the importance of the examined variables in the sustainable development agenda of the continent. For instance, a 1% increase in tourism increases economic growth by 0.0195%. Similarly, a 1% increase in access to electricity and technological development increases economic growth by 0.0019% and 0.0009%, respectively. In conclusion, this study highlights the multifaceted merits that can be gleaned from access to electricity, tourism, and technological innovation in SSA, as they improve economic growth and HDI indicators that comprise life expectancy, quality education, and per capita income level.