Mercy Derkyi

Advanced Value Chain Collaboration in Ghana’s Cocoa Sector: An Entry Point for Integrated Landscape Approaches?

Value chain analyses have focused mainly on collaboration between chain actors, often neglecting collaboration “beyond the chain” with non-chain actors to tackle food security, poverty and sustainability issues in the landscapes in which these value chains are embedded. Comparing conventional and advanced value chain collaborations involving small-scale cocoa farmers in Ghana, this paper analyzes the merits of a more integrated approach toward value chain collaboration. It particularly asks whether advanced value chain collaboration targeting cocoa-producing areas potentially offers an entry point for implementing a landscape approach. The findings detail current chain actors and institutions and show how advanced value chain collaboration has a greater positive impact than conventional value chain collaboration on farmers’ social, human and natural capital. The paper concludes that the integrated approach, focus on learning, and stable relationships with small-scale farmers inherent in advanced value chain collaboration makes it both more sustainable and effective at the local level than conventional approaches. However, its scope and the actors’ jurisdictional powers and self-organization are too limited to be the sole tool in negotiating land use and trade-offs at the landscape level. To evolve as such would require certification beyond the farm level, partnering with other landscape stakeholders, and brokering by bridging organizations.

Fighting Over Forest: Toward a Shared Analysis of Livelihood Conflicts and Conflict Management in Ghana

Conflicts undermine forest-based livelihoods for the rural poor. Conflict management is key to preventing such conflicts. This article analyzes actor perceptions of forest- and tree-related conflicts and conflict management in Ghanas high forest zone. It also assesses a phased methodology that promotes shared problem definition and ownership of recommendations on conflict resolution strategies through the presentation and discussion of findings from document analysis, surveys, interviews, and focus-group discussions at a workshop with forest professionals held in Kumasi, Ghana. The study found that conflicts are inherent in forest-based livelihoods due to policy and legislative failures and institutional deficiencies, perceived goal incompatibility, opportunities for interfering with the attainment of one anothers goals, and environmental scarcity. Ongoing forest governance reforms in Ghana should consider the stepwise conflict management model developed by the workshop participants involved in this study, but expand it to include the views of other stakeholder groups.

Inclusion of gender in Africa’s climate change policies and strategies

Concerns of climate change impacts and adaptations have continued to receive much attention in both local and international climate change debate. It is now understood that the challenge of climate change cannot be addressed as a standalone issue but within different social, economic, and environmental contexts. It is currently acknowledged that Africa’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is insignificant. Except for South Africa, all the countries in Africa contribute below the global average of 3.5 m/ton of CO2 per capita. However, Africa is very vulnerable to climate change given its low capacity to respond and adapt. Furthermore, progress in enhancing better understanding of gender variations on the impacts and adaptation to climate change has been relatively limited. The differentiated impacts of climate change at local level add to the complexities of developing gender sensitive response strategies. With the endorsement of the Paris Climate agreement of 2015, African countries are now gearing up to implement international and national climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives. While progress has been in developing polices and strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, it is critical to ensure that these do not lead to further inequalities during implementation. This chapter, therefore, aims at reviewing climate change related policies and strategies in East and West Africa through a gendered lens. The countries are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania in East Africa, and Ghana and Nigeria in West Africa. Drawing upon a common framework/guideline, we examined commonality in policies, while recognizing the complexity in the social, economic and ecological systems of each country. The chapter further assesses the importance of integrating and mainstreaming gender into Africa’s national adaptations plans of actions (NAPAs), and Intended Nationally Distributed Contributions (INDCs), and the need for better gender oriented climate change policies, programs and plans.

Conflict or cooperation? Social capital as a power resource and conflict mitigation strategy in timber operations in Ghana’s off-reserve forest areas

Conflicts over forests and trees threaten the sustainability of the resource base. The nature and causes of such conflicts have been documented, but little is known about factors that determine whether interactions result in conflict or cooperation. Particularly, the role of social capital has been underexposed, with existing studies focusing mainly on networks, and less on the role of norms, trust, and reciprocity in conflict mitigation. Our case study addresses these gaps, asking what factors determine whether interactions about timber resources in Ghana’s off-reserve forest areas result in conflict or cooperation. Off-reserve areas, which are mosaics of forest, fallow, and farmland patches, contribute significantly to timber for domestic and export markets, despite a rapidly declining resource base since the 2000s. Conflicts over legally required social responsibility agreements and inadequate compensation for crop damage abound, but, in rare cases, peaceful cooperation exists. Based on a literature review, document analysis, key respondent interviews, semistructured interviews, and focus groups, we found that interactions between actors are shaped by a complex mix of socioeconomic, social, orientational, and institutional power resources that actors mobilize to negotiate access to increasingly scarce timber resources and their benefits. Socioeconomic power resources initially determine whether a cooperative relationship between timber operators and communities can be established, but elements of social capital (connectedness, norms, trustworthiness, and reciprocity) determine the further course of the interaction patterns. Communities thereby rely primarily on bonding social capital because their bridging capital is practically absent and their linking capital is limited to people who are potential conflict partners. We conclude that conflicts in forested landscapes go beyond competing claims and benefit sharing, and that norms, trustworthiness, and reciprocity are at least as important dimensions of social capital as networks. This finding implies that more attention is needed toward the cultural context in which interactions are embedded.