Abstract

This study examined the relationship among public debt servicing, government effectiveness and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2000 and 2023, using panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique. Findings revealed that a relationship was established among public debt servicing, government effectiveness and economic growth with the period of study in SSA. Obviously, public debt servicing has negative significant influence on economic growth in the short- and long-runs, while government effectiveness has positive and significant influence on economic growth in the short- and long-runs, showing the effrontery performance of the governance to enhance the economy. In addition, inflation, population, and trade openness have positive and significant effects on the economy in SSA. However, economic growth granger caused public debt servicing, and also government effectiveness granger caused economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa within the period of study. Therefore, the study recommends that government should reduce borrowing from internal and external banks to finance public projects in order to reduce the burden of debt servicing and create investments that could drive economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa.