Breaking barriers, building resilience: Leveraging knowledge to mitigate energy vulnerability in Africa

Abstract

Addressing energy vulnerability can unlock economic potential and create pathways for inclusive and sustainable development. Knowledge creation and use are essential components of efforts to promote sustainable energy access and support development goals. This paper scrutinizes the effect of knowledge on energy vulnerability in Africa. Using data from 27 countries from 2000 to 2019, findings from feasible generalized least squares, panel-corrected standard errors, and fixed-effects with Driscoll and Kraay (1998) standard errors demonstrate that the three components of knowledge creation and use (education quality, ICT penetration, and innovation) mitigate energy vulnerability in Africa. Moreover, findings from the quantile regression confirm that the effect of knowledge is negative but heterogeneous across the conditional distribution of energy vulnerability. Finally, economic globalization incurs energy vulnerability, while urbanization has a negative and statistically significant effect. Thus, policymakers and governments should actively invest in education and training programs and provide incentives for ICT development and energy innovation to alleviate energy vulnerability in Africa.