Abstract
Africa's deepening globalization, trade openness nearing 60% of GDP, has not yielded commensurate sustainable development gains, revealing a structural paradox. Existing analyses largely omit dependency mechanisms, overstating the neutrality of integration. Using a panel of 43 Sub-Saharan African countries (2000–2022), this study combines a multidimensional globalization index, a composite sustainable development measure, and dynamic panel estimation (System GMM) with interaction terms to address endogeneity and structural heterogeneity. Results indicate that globalization exerts a modest positive effect (β ≈ +0.023), but this effect is systematically weakened by structural dependency, with marginal gains declining by nearly 70% across the dependency distribution. Financial development remains a significant independent driver of development outcomes. The study contributes by embedding dependency theory within the SDG framework and advancing an identification strategy that explicitly models structural moderation. Policy implications extend beyond Africa, demonstrating that in the Global South, development hinges less on integration depth than on restructuring the conditions under which globalization operates.