Win–Win or Trade-Off in the Nexus Between Undernourishment and Environmental Sustainability: Empirical Evidence from the Least Developed African Countries

The inconsistencies between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are increasingly being questioned in recent research. This study seeks to explore the nexus between the reduction in undernourishment and the ecological footprint, as a proxy for environmental sustainability, in 17 Least Developed Countries in Africa between 2002 and 2020, within the framework of win–win and trade-off hypotheses. To this end, the ecological footprint and undernourishment are estimated in two separate models, using robust econometric techniques such as the Common Related Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) estimator in order to analyze win–win and trade-off scenarios of long-term elasticities. Robustness estimations are conducted utilizing the following techniques: the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS), Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE), and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS). The primary empirical evidence reveals a negative nexus between the reduction in undernourishment and environmental sustainability, pointing to a potential trade-off scenario. The findings regarding the control variables, consisting of per capita income, energy intensity, and agricultural production, exceed our expectations and support the vicious cycle hypothesis. These empirical findings deserve the urgent attention of policymakers. Finally, significant empirical findings supporting Granger causality from the Dumitercu and Hurlin (D-H) pairwise panel causality tests among the variables are revealed.