The Political Economy of Energy Access and Institutional Mediation in Climate Finance for Sustainable Development

This study investigates how institutional quality mediates the impact of climate finance on sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with energy access serving as a key transmission pathway. The analysis is based on an unbalanced panel dataset covering 39 SSA countries from 2000 to 2022. The dataset integrates variables from multiple reputable international sources: Climate finance indicators (aggregate and disaggregated flows for mitigation and adaptation) were obtained from the OECD–DAC Climate-Related Development Finance database and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). Institutional quality indicators were sourced from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), covering control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and rule of law. Energy access metrics were drawn from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI) and IEA Energy Access Database, including access to electricity and clean cooking technologies. Sustainable development outcomes were proxied using a composite Sustainable Development Index (SDI) constructed from economic, social, and environmental dimensions following established methodologies. Control variables such as GDP growth, inflation, FDI inflows, and population growth were also extracted from WDI. All variables were harmonized and transformed for econometric analysis using the Panel System GMM estimator. The compiled dataset supports replication of all empirical results presented in the study.