Building resilience in the face of natural disasters: ICT, fossil fuel use, and sustainable development in an emerging economy

Abstract

As an emerging and rapidly growing economy, Bangladesh is among the top vulnerable countries in the world in terms of natural disasters. These disasters, in turn, have significant implications for sustainable development of this country. In this research, following theoretical and empirical background, we evaluate the role of natural disaster, information and communication technology or ICT, non-renewable energy use, international cooperation in the form of globalization and public sector corruption on sustainable development of Bangladesh. We use the data from 1985 to 2021 and employ robust econometric techniques such as dynamic ARDL simulation. The result from the dynamic ARDL simulation suggests that natural disaster has positive and significant effect on sustainable development of Bangladesh in the short and long run. The use of ICT as well as non-renewable energy has positive and significant impact only in the long run. Furthermore, international cooperation significantly and positively affects sustainable development both in the long run and short run while corruption has no impact in any period. The study finally provides policy recommendations based on the above findings.