Climate Variability and Urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa: Mitigating the Effects on Economic Growth

This study sought to analyze the interactions between climate variability, urbanization, and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, it analyzed the extent to which climate variability could maintain the interaction between economic growth and urbanization a virtuous one. An empirical strategy combining a literature review, a descriptive analysis, and a PSTR model, was designed to achieve the specified objectives. More specifically, the PSTR model was estimated using a panel data of 32 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1990-2018 to obtain some interesting findings. The literature review pointed to several research avenues, of which: i) multivariate analyses of economic growth, urbanization, and climate variability; (ii) measurement challenges with urbanization and climate change; and (iii) modelling approaches. Quantitative results indicated that in Sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization only has a positive effect on economic growth if the temperature variability is below the threshold of - 0.4501, while the average temperature variability is around 0.5470.