The Bibliometric Structure of Green Economy Research in Africa: Trends, Concentration, and Implications for Morocco

Résumé

This article maps the scholarly landscape of green economy research in Africa through a bibliometric approach. It aims to identify the main publication trends, source concentration patterns, author visibility, and geographical configurations structuring the field, while drawing analytical implications for Morocco. The analysis covers the period 2010–2024 and is based on a corpus of 84 documents published in 66 sources by 272 authors. Using Biblioshiny, the study examines scientific production, citation dynamics, core journals, leading authors, and country-level publication patterns.

The findings reveal a rapidly expanding but unevenly consolidated field. Scientific output has accelerated markedly, particularly after 2020, while citation patterns remain more irregular. The literature is concentrated in a limited number of outlets, with Sustainability and Sustainable Development emerging as the most visible journals. At the author level, the field is shaped by a small group of recurring contributors, while geographically it is strongly polarized around South Africa, followed by the United Kingdom and China. These results indicate that green economy research in Africa is characterized by rapid growth, editorial concentration, partial intellectual stabilization, and marked territorial asymmetry. For Morocco, the study highlights not a dominant bibliometric position, but a promising and still underdeveloped research space within the African green economy agenda.