Institutional Analysis of Biofuel: a Discussion
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Acknowledgement I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Darley Jose Kjosavik for her guidance throughout the thesis write up. I am grateful to the chiefs and people Kpaacha and Jaase communities for making time to interact with me. I wish to also thank the management of Biofuel Africa Limited particularly Steiner Kolnes and Adam Awal. I am grateful to the personnel at the Yendi Municipal Assembly, Environmental Protection Agency (Tamale), Ghana Energy Commission (Accra), Lands Commission (Tamale), and Agricultural Unit (Tamale). John-Kwose Emmanuel deserves a mention for his assistance during the field work. To all my friends who played diverse roles to make this work come to fruition, I say God bless us all. i Dedication To my daughter Wesonno Lorraine Jarawura, God bless you for sacrificing to stay away from mum under one year to enable her come this far in life. You are always God’s love. To the Kwoyigah family, I say thank you for standing by me when ‘the wind of life’ was blowing against me. Most importantly to the Almighty God who made me live to declare His goodness. ii Abstract The thesis studied the nature of institutional arrangement around biofuel production and how this arrangement has shaped the production outcome of biofuel companies and community development. The study was conducted in two communities of the Yendi Municipal Assembly of the Northern Region of Ghana. In this area, a biofuel company called Biofuel Africa Limited has acquired areas of land and cultivated Jatropha plantations. A total of 32 informants were interviewed to arrive at information need to answer the research questions. Theoretical propositions of legal framework, property rights and regimes and local norms were used as the bases for analyzing how jatropha production could strive in an environment where there is the lack of substantive renewable energy law. The findings showed that local norms and laws from related fields of agriculture are not enough to regulate biofuel production in the country. The study revealed that legal pluralism creates clashes among various normative systems rather than collaboration in a given economic activity like biofuel production. The findings further revealed that government agencies designated to handle upstream biofuel activities in the country are not effective in their roles except the Environmental Protection Agency. The findings also revealed that currently biofuel companies are worse off in terms of production as financial support and local people’s support are limited. Notwithstanding the challenges that the absence of a renewable energy law has created, biofuel production in the communities has provided employment opportunities resulting in an increase in local people’s income thereby improving their living standards. Facilities like dams and grinding mills have also been provided by the company to the local people. iii TABLE OF CONTENT Acknowledgement .................................................................................................................................... i Dedication ................................................................................................................................................ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables .......................................................................................................................................... vii List of Figure .......................................................................................................................................... viii 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background of the study .......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Problem statement ......................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Objectives ................................................................................................................................ 3 1.4 Structure of thesis .................................................................................................................... 4 2 PROFILE OF THE STUDY AREAS................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Physical and socio-economic characteristics ................................................................................. 5 2.1.1 Location of the municipality .................................................................................................. 5 2.1.2 Demography ........................................................................................................................... 5 2.1.3 Political characteristics of the municipality ............................................................................ 6 2.1.4 Climate and vegetation ........................................................................................................... 6 2.1.5 Soil.......................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1.6 Current economy of the municipality ..................................................................................... 7 2.2 Infrastructure distribution .............................................................................................................. 7 2.2.1 Roads ...................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2.2 Health Facilities ...................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.3 Electricity ............................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.4 Water ...................................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.5 Post and Telecommunications ................................................................................................ 8 2.2.6 Schools ................................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.7 Banking .................................................................................................................................. 9 2.2.8 Market .................................................................................................................................... 9 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................. 11 3.1 Choice of methodology ............................................................................................................... 11 3.2 The study areas ............................................................................................................................ 12 3.3 Data collection process ................................................................................................................ 13 3.3.1 Gaining entry ........................................................................................................................ 13 3.3.2 Methods of data collection ................................................................................................... 15 iv 3.4 Ethical considerations .................................................................................................................. 17 3.5 Limitations of the research .......................................................................................................... 18 4 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................... 21 4.1 Institution..................................................................................................................................... 21 4. 2 Property right and property regimes ........................................................................................... 23 4.3 Legal pluralism ........................................................................................................................ 24 4.4 The wave of biofuel in Ghana ..................................................................................................... 28 4.4.1 Policy Objectives on biofuel ................................................................................................ 29 4.4.2 Institutional arrangements around biofuel ............................................................................ 30 4.5 History of Land administration in Ghana .................................................................................... 31 4.3 Land arrangement in Ghana ........................................................................................................ 32 4.6 Institutional and legal pluralism over land in Ghana ................................................................... 32 4.6.1 Background of traditional institutions and natural resource management in Ghana ............ 33 4.7 Traditional system of governance in northern Ghana ................................................................. 37 5 INSTITUTIONS