Natural Resources Management for Achieving SDGs: Do Digital Governance Policies Mitigate the Resource Curse for Sustainable Business?

Abstract

The digital governance (DG) policies can help to mitigate the resource curse and promote sustainable growth of business by improving transparency, accountability for SDGs, and efficiency in natural resource management (NRM). However, in this regard the scholarly literature is lacking on how to mitigate the resource curse to support the NRM and environmentally sustainable business through DG policies. This study uses rigorous qualitative research to locate and sort through studies pertinent to ‘natural resources management’ and ‘environmentally sustainable business growth’ and then critically evaluate and combine the results into a unified claim. This study argues that similar to how evolution causes changes in societies and cultures, it introduces a four-stage ‘digital government evolution model’, which includes the stages of ‘digitization, transformation, engagement and contextualization’. The findings indicate that implementing mitigating DG policies substantially alleviates the deterioration linked with ‘resource curse’ by enhancing trade diversification and effective, environmentally sustainable economic growth. The outcomes offer theoretical support for the sustainable advancement of DG and the alleviation of the ‘resource curse’, while also establishing a practical foundation for enhancing the development of DG through recommended strategic mitigating policies for NRM for resource curse for sustainable business for achieving SDGs.