As a prelude to the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs), the UN launched the eight-millennium development goals (MDGs) in 2000. At their expiration in 2015, 17 SDGs were introduced as agenda for 2030. The launching of the SDGs was on the background that while world economies continue to expedite their development process, they must also not lose focus on the cost of resource depletion, ecological pollution and damage (Zhong et al., 2021; Aladejare and Nyiputen, 2022). Therefore, the SDGs intend to chart a global, comprehensive set of objectives necessary for guiding nations of the world on the trajectory towards sustainable development, which encompasses economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability (Aladejare et al., 2020). Therefore, sustainable development entails considering the three aspects of economic, social, and ecological factors in improving human wellbeing (Dickens et al., 2019; Zhong et al., 2021). In other words, it is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (UN, 1987; Elgazzar and El-Gazzar, 2017).
With a few years to the 2030 SDGs target, there have been different attempts to assess countries' level of accomplishment of these goals (Allen et al., 2018; Miola and Schiltz, 2019). The annual SDG index and dashboard (SDGI&D) proposed by Sachs et al. (2016) is prominent among such. Findings from the SDGI&D indicate that all signatory countries to the SDGs are reneging on efforts to fulfil the goals by 2030 (Sachs et al., 2020). In essence, developed and developing countries are not doing much to achieving sustainable development. Furthermore, the speed of world advancement is failing to align with the ambitions of sustainable development, indicating the urge for prompt and swift interventions by countries and stakeholders at all levels, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic and its retarding impacts on specific SDGs and targets (UN, 2020). Contemporary issues are exacerbating nations' challenges in actualising sustainable development. Hence, there is an urgent need for countries to take more ambitious actions if sustainable development is to be realised.
Economies around the world, particularly in developing countries, are grappling with contemporary challenges that can potentially hamper the realisation of sustainable development. These challenges include growing resource wealth, rising consumer prices, inefficient public expenditure, and the effects of globalisation. Many economies have had their policymakers urgently "shopping" for measures to cushion the adverse effects of these phenomena. Specifically, African countries may end up worse hit due to the comparatively low investment inflows to the continent (Aladejare, 2022a). Although most economic growth in the continent is resource-earnings driven (Aladejare and Nyiputen, 2022), the adverse effect on the environment can deter sustainable development. This is because natural endowments required for industrial and, by extension, economic growth contribute to environmental pollution and atrophy through detrimental extractive methods (Aladejare, 2022b). For instance, the extraction of renewable and non-renewable natural resources in crude oil, minerals, natural gas, forestry and agricultural products is known to degenerate ecological sustainability (Xue et al., 2021; Majeed et al., 2021; Adekoya et al., 2022; Adebayo et al., 2022 Ganda, 2022; Aladejare, 2022c,d) and by extension, sustainable development.
Also, rising consumer prices experienced worldwide is a current challenge African countries are grappling with. The situation has exacerbated the inflation problem in most countries and is swelling the population below the poverty line. Thus, the SDGs of no poverty, zero hunger, and good health and wellbeing in Africa are being jeopardised. In 2022 alone, at unprecedented levels, many countries have had to deal with related climate change issues such as flooding, drought, water shortage, extreme heat, etc. The implications of this could further worsen consumer prices, especially food prices, due to their needs and hinder sustainable development. For instance, a significant amount of the yearly food crops produced and consumed in Africa lack quality from the perspective of critical vitamins and minerals (Aladejare et al., 2022). Also, it is estimated that rising food prices exacerbated by climate change have created the worst food crisis in Africa in the past four decades, as about 146 million persons are battling extreme hunger (British Red Cross, 2022). Rising consumer prices exert more pressure on inflation and worsen the quality of life since consumers are disincentivised to maintain/increase their consumption level.
Furthermore, governments in the continent are witnessing a trajectory in public spending. Some underlining factors for such phenomenon include the rising cost of debt repayments, growing deficit financing, the need for infrastructural development, and outlay on socioeconomic factors (such as education, income, security, unemployment, and social support). Except debt repayments, other kinds of expenditure are required if African countries are to attain sustainable development. However, many countries in the continent are beginning to groan under the heavy burden of debt repayment, which is gulping an enormous share of public revenue and outlay (Aladejare, 2022e). It has been noted that many African countries find themselves over-burden by their debt obligations because an enormous portion of their expenditure is devoted to inefficiencies such as misappropriation, poor quality of government services, corruption, waste of resources, and the crowding-out of private spending (IMF, 2019; Cristobal et al., 2021). Thus, as public spending keeps rising, a significant amount of it gets crowded away by growing debt repayment obligations, thereby constraining outlay on projects needed to actualise sustainable development (Van et al., 2020; Aladejare, 2022e).
In addition, the world economy is a culmination of global connectivity, encompassing the globalisation of production and consumption, governance, information, and ethics (Neagu, 2020). Thus, through globalisation, countries (developed and developing) are motivated to continue integrating due to the significance and strength of pooled resources, shared technology and knowledge, trade, etc. Consequently, African economies are increasingly knitted with others within and outside the continent than ever before (Aladejare and Nyiputen, 2022). There are overwhelming studies documenting the economic growth stimulating effect of globalisation worldwide. Nevertheless, the gains from globalisation are believed to be more skewed towards developed countries, further widening the gap between wealthy and developing nations (Naegu, 2020). Moreover, the globalisation effect on developing countries is still being argued to have environmental repercussions, and hence, devastating effect on sustainable development. From the neoliberal perspective, globalisation has been a blessing than a curse, especially from the lens of depreciating poverty and income inequality in developing nations (Aladejare and Nyiputen, 2022; Adjei and Adu-Gyamfi, 2022). However, globalisation is also fingered to have aided the accelerated ecological deterioration of developing countries through the transfer of "dirty technology" from the developed world (Le and Ozturk, 2020; Nathaniel et al., 2021; Hussain and Zhou, 2022; Aladejare, 2022d).
Thus, this study examined whether African countries can attain sustainable development given the contemporary threats posed by growing resource income, rising consumer prices, inefficient public spending, and globalisation. It is noteworthy that this study leads in the simultaneous empirical examination of the effects of these contemporary issues on sustainable development, particularly for African countries. For instance, studies related to Africa have mainly dwelled on issues such as climate change, information communication technology (ICT), tourism, and their effect on sustainable development (Ajulor, 2018; Addaney and Cobbinah, 2019; Pedro et al., 2019; Asongu and Odhiambo, 2019; Siakwah et al., 2020; Tucho and Kumsa, 2020; Auriacombe and Van der Walt, 2021). Similarly, the impact of the contemporary challenges as identified in this study reveals overwhelmingly examination on environmental sustainability; while neglecting their social and economic effects (Alola et al., 2019; Ullah et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2022; Azam et al., 2022; Shao et al., 2022; Kihombo et al., 2022). Hence, this study extends the literature by adopting a broader measure of sustainable development to fill this gap.
The empirical findings of this study were derived through long-term estimation methodologies; they include the feasible generalised least squares (FGLS), Driscoll-Kraay (D-K), and panel dynamic ordinary least squares (PDOLS) techniques. Data were sourced from 24 African countries from 1991–2021. A long-term model was estimated to capture the consequential effects of contemporary issues on sustainable development. Evidence from the model revealed that increases in resources income, consumer prices, public outlay, and globalisation are deterrents to sustainable development in the continent. However, rising income (the moderating variable) was found to enhance sustainable development.
The rest of the study follows this: Section 2 contains the reviewed literature; Section 3 captures the study's data and methodology; the study findings and discussion are in Section 4, and Section 5 are the conclusions and policy implications.