Sustainable development goals: Attaining sustainable living through financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This study examines the effect of financial inclusion on sustainable living in 20 sub-Saharan African countries using the panel Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) model. The findings indicate that FII, the numbers of borrowers, depositors, bank branches and automated teller machines exert a significant effect on GDP per capita in sub-Saharan Africa. The Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimates further indicate that FII (which captured the combined effect of financial access and usage) exerts a negative effect on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  However, the results of the individual measures of financial inclusion, that is, the numbers of borrowers, depositors and banking penetration exert a positive effect on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the long run in sub-Saharan Africa. This portends that financial inclusion is a significant contributor that can improve sustainable living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on these, the study recommends the need to improve access to and usage of financial products and services through user-friendly and service-fluent financial technologies in sub-Saharan Africa. This will help increase the number of households, smallholder farmers and businesses to access the formal financial system to meet their reoccurring and precautionary funding needs in sub-Saharan African countries.