Challenges faced by African countries in achieving the goals of sustainable development are similar and trans-boundary. Previous analysis of Africa’s progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has largely b...Challenges faced by African countries in achieving the goals of sustainable development are similar and trans-boundary. Previous analysis of Africa’s progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has largely beennon-spatial, reducing the ability to find spatial relationships between countries and SDGs to help cooperationand proffer country-specific interventions. This study adopted techniques of exploratory and inferential spatialstatistics to assess the successes of African countries from 2016 to 2020 in achieving the goals of sustainable de-velopment. Also, the study sought to understand how the spatial synergies and trade-offs between SDGs vary percountry and time. The results revealed that spatial hotspots of countries with high SDGs scores were mostly con-fined to northern African countries with significant coldspots within central and eastern Africa and few patchesin western and southern Africa for 2016. In 2020, the number of countries forming hotspots reduced, with Cen-tral African countries as significant cold spots. Five main spatial relationships: positive linear, negative linear,concave, convex and undefined complex, were found among countries and the SDGs. However, these spatialrelationships were fluid as they changed over time and with different levels of influence from 2016 to 2020.The study concludes that generic solutions and policies by development agencies, governments, developmentfinance instiutions and other impact investors will not be enough in achieving the SDGs because of the spatialheterogeneity of the continent. Tailored and country-specific policies based on results of spatial statistics matter.展开更多
文摘Challenges faced by African countries in achieving the goals of sustainable development are similar and trans-boundary. Previous analysis of Africa’s progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has largely beennon-spatial, reducing the ability to find spatial relationships between countries and SDGs to help cooperationand proffer country-specific interventions. This study adopted techniques of exploratory and inferential spatialstatistics to assess the successes of African countries from 2016 to 2020 in achieving the goals of sustainable de-velopment. Also, the study sought to understand how the spatial synergies and trade-offs between SDGs vary percountry and time. The results revealed that spatial hotspots of countries with high SDGs scores were mostly con-fined to northern African countries with significant coldspots within central and eastern Africa and few patchesin western and southern Africa for 2016. In 2020, the number of countries forming hotspots reduced, with Cen-tral African countries as significant cold spots. Five main spatial relationships: positive linear, negative linear,concave, convex and undefined complex, were found among countries and the SDGs. However, these spatialrelationships were fluid as they changed over time and with different levels of influence from 2016 to 2020.The study concludes that generic solutions and policies by development agencies, governments, developmentfinance instiutions and other impact investors will not be enough in achieving the SDGs because of the spatialheterogeneity of the continent. Tailored and country-specific policies based on results of spatial statistics matter.
