Sustainability Challenge in the Agenda of African Countries: Evidence from Simultaneous Equations Models Sofien Tiba 1 & Mohamed Frikha 1 Received: 10 November 2017 /Accepted: 10 February 2019/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract This paper has the aim to treat the interaction between the pillars of the sustainable development issue. We also attempt to build an index which is used as a measure of sustainable development by including good governance as the fourth pillar of sustain- able development. We use the simultaneous equations panel data models to check for the nexus between the four pillars of sustainable development for 26 African countries over a time span 1990–2013. In addition, we applied the principal component analysis to construct a sustainable development index. The main conclusion is the existence of feedback causality among the economic, social, ecological, and the institutional pillar. Our findings record the fact that these four pillars can be seen as interrelated rings that are all required to reach sustainability. Sustainable development is an open-ended phenomenon, and it continues to be the most controversial dilemma for the entire world, which Africa should beat the third-millennium challenge and join up the developed globe. This debate is the main goal for African governments and their highlights seem to be the legacy for the future generations. Keywords Sustainable development . Governance . Africa . Principalcomponentanalysis . Simultaneous equations models Introduction With the increasing widespread consciousness that looks at the ecological issue, also, the image of our blue planet provided by the Apollo astronauts has inspired the Journal of the Knowledge Economy https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-019-00605-4 * Sofien Tiba sofienetiba@gmail.com Mohamed Frikha mohamed.frikha1059@gmail.com 1 Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia