Reducing depletion, protecting natural resources in Africa: Beyond the direct role of e-government

Africa’s vast natural resource wealth presents a paradox: while it holds immense potential for development, it continues to be depleted at an unsustainable pace, raising urgent concerns about governance and environmental sustainability. This paper aims to assess beyond the direct role of e-government in protecting natural resources and reducing depletion. As such, a dataset on 35 African countries is build covering the 2006–2021 period. The empirical strategy relies on fixed effects estimator and structural equation modelling. Results demonstrate positive linkages between e-government adoption and natural resource protection. The causal mediation analysis compliments this finding and identified voice and accountability, control of corruption and government effectiveness as indirect channels through which of e-government promote natural resource protection in Africa. The findings remained consistent after a battery of robustness checks. Disaggregating e-government into its primary components revealed that building a reliable telecom network and enhancing quality online services provide greater impact on natural resource protection. Governments should expand e-government to enhance transparency in resource management through open access to contracts, licensing, and revenue data. Also, integrating anti-corruption measures such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative standards, and improving cybersecurity can build trust, reduce rent-seeking and unsustainable resource exploitation.