GOVERNANCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES IN GHANA’S COCOA SECTOR: PERSPECTIVES FROM INTEGRATED PUBLIC GOVERNANCE THEORY

Abstract

As a ‘complex global crisis par excellence’, climate change continues to attract extensive global, national and local attention considering the varied nature of its impact across sectors of all economies. Lessons from the international level and advanced economies suggest prominent milestones in governance of climate change policies, strategic institutional framework, robust stakeholder integration for climate action and significant gains from stakeholder involvement across levels. Yet, recent studies on the governance of climate change policies and ambitious integration of stakeholder networks across sectors and levels appear to have attracted limited scholarly attention, especially in many developing economies, where climate change vulnerability is high. Climate change has diverse implications for health outcomes, environmental systems and the socio-economic outlook of every community. Regarding the cocoa sector, extant research evidence indicates the significant contribution of the industry through revenue generation, employment creation and source of livelihood for numerous households. Notwithstanding the visible contribution of the sector, climate change has proven to have a continuous impact on the cocoa sector even though very little attention has been offered in terms of research in developing countries. To empirically advance knowledge on Climate Smart Cocoa (CSC), this study examines the policy governance architecture, stakeholder integration and relations between key stakeholders as well as the significance and barriers of stakeholder integration from the Ghanaian perspective. The study predominantly employs a qualitative research methodology through a semi structured in-depth interview, review of relevant documents, and focus group discussions as the main data collection tools. The study draws from the Integrated Public Governance Theory perspective as the main theoretical underpinning for investigating the phenomenon. The study observes that domestic climate change policy process receives strong inspiration from international climate change accords and are shaped by a complex mix of national and sectoral climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. This study indicates the evidence of limited policy alignment strategies and policy incoherence for the plethora of national and sectoral climate change policies in Ghana. This study further shows that healthy stakeholder integration has an overt implication on the efficacy of CSC interventions as compared to ‘pseudo’ and ‘selective’ stakeholder integrations. Also, the findings of this study reveal that the traditional dominance of public bureaucracies in governance has paved the way to a mutually reinforcing climate change governance regime in Ghana’s cocoa sector where public, private and third-sector players’ contribution is recognized. This study argues that this stakeholder integration outlook is to mobilise robust action for resilient CSC, provide enhanced support for CSC initiatives and mobilise strategic and ambitious partnerships for climate action. This study forcefully contends that such a broad stakeholder integration outlook is sometimes characterised by power imbalances, and varied stakeholder interests due to the complex nature of climate change and the actors involved. Hence, the stakeholder integration architecture is sometimes cosmetic and superficial with a semblance of ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ in the pursuit of CSC. This study recommends a holistic stakeholder integration across all stages of the climate change policy process as it encourages peer learning, a coproduction of knowledge, and exchange of technical knowledge allows for diversity and equitable inclusion of marginalized and less privileged groups as well as improves policy legitimacy and social justice for CSC.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Mohammad Farhad Hossain (Supervisor) & Aminu Mamman (Supervisor)