Ghana's Transition To Green Economy: Prospects And Challenges

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is an urgent need for Ghana to take deliberate actions to transition its economy to a GE to address the increasing environmental crisis in Ghana and meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, this research explored the prospects and challenges of GE in Ghana, focusing on the key sectors: energy, transport, waste, agriculture, and forestry. The study was influenced by the interpretivist paradigm and adopted a qualitative approach and a case study design. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were employed to select nineteen (19) participants from eleven public institutions of the sectors understudied. Data were analysed thematically with Miles and Huberman's (1994) data analysis approach. The study revealed that the factors driving Ghana's transition to GE included poor environmental policies and programmes governing the use of natural resources, energy insecurity, unsustainable development patterns, and poor waste management in a brown economy. The study further discovered that there are policy frameworks and strategies to facilitate the GE transition in Ghana, although some respondents were unaware they existed. Finally, several GE prospects in Ghana were identified. Possible challenges were: inadequate resources (funds, capacity, and technology), lack of the necessary political recognition and support, poor institutional coordination among key stakeholders and lack of climate-sensitive budget. Based on the challenges, stakeholders should review the existing policies to attract and incentivise the private sector and foreign direct investors to invest in the transition. Investing in the transition would help to address funding issues and other challenges. Stakeholders of the transition should also help improve upon institutional and policy coordination since the transition is a collective responsibility and therefore calls for collective action