When the Wells Run Dry: Empirical Evidence on Water Stress, Governance Quality and Human Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Okello, Don and Farkas, Tibor and Koponicsné Györke, Diána (2026) When the Wells Run Dry: Empirical Evidence on Water Stress, Governance Quality and Human Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. REGIONAL AND BUSINESS STUDIES, 18 (1). pp. 5-22. ISSN 2061-2311

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Abstract

The Sub-Saharan Africa region is faced by a severe and multidimensional water crisis threatening to undermine sustainable development efforts across the region. Despite the global commitment to SDG 6, 387 million from SSA by 2020 had no basic drinking water service access with pronounced disparities between urban and rural areas. Accordingly, whereas existing studies have explored water scarcity in relation to population pressures, human activities, and climate change, the relationship between human development, water stress and environmental governance quality remains underexplored. Specifically, the study aimed: to determine the influence of level of water stress on human development in SSA; and to establish the influence of environmental governance quality on human development in SSA. The study used secondary data from the World Bank for 24 SSA countries spanning 17 years from 2005 to 2021. The study employed Random-effects GLS regression using Stata 17. The model demonstrates that both water stress and environmental governance quality explain about 58.80% of the variation in human development overall. Similarly, both water stress and environmental governance quality explain approximately 40.33% and 37.60% variation in human development between and within the 24 Sub Saharan Africa countries respectively. The findings show how much both the level of water stress (β=.03092, p value = 0.000) and the quality of environmental governance (β=.03618, p value = 0.000) positively stress-impacted and influenced human development. This reveals the need for more robust environmental governance and integrated water resource management in Sub- Saharan Africa.

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