Institutional Barriers and Gender Inequalities in the Adoption of Green Technologies in Africa

A promising solution to the challenge of sustainability and environmental protection lies in promoting the adoption and use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and advancing gender equality. ICTs can contribute to environmental protection by transforming production methods and processes into cleaner technologies, through energy savings, or by interacting with institutions and governance. This article seeks to fill a gap in the existing literature by describing a number of theoretical mechanisms and providing empirical evidence of the diffusion of green technologies and its interaction with institutional quality. Using a cross-sectional distributed lag (CS-DL) model across 40 African countries over the period 2000–2020, the results indicate that a reduction in CO2 emissions is generally associated with greater diffusion of digital technologies. The results also suggest that an improvement in the institutional quality of African countries is associated with better environmental protection. Furthermore, the results show that a reduction in gender inequalities is associated with better performance in terms of green innovation. In addition, regulations aimed at encouraging the transition to renewable energy are likely to contribute to improving the environmental performance of African countries.