Access along Ghana’s charcoal commodity chain

Abstract

Charcoal production and exchange is lucrative across sub-Saharan Africa. But who profits along the charcoal commodity chains? By mapping access along the charcoal chain in Ghana, based on interviews with 650 actors, this article traces out the social and political-economic relations by which charcoal benefits are distributed. It illuminates how access and the mechanisms used by various groups of actors to maintain and control access are dynamic in time and space. The article shows how significant profits are derived by those in control of the market while those in control of the resource (the trees) and the production process generate much lower levels of profits. The article suggests force, moral economy, social movement, and innovation as additional access mechanisms to those outlined by Ribot and Peluso in their Theory of Access. Improving equity along charcoal commodity chains requires more attention to access mechanisms operating on charcoal markets, especially access to capital, information and buyers.

Keywords:

• Access mapping
• commodity chain analysis
• power
• inequality
• property
• West Africa

Notes

Acknowledgements

Comments and questions from many people have helped us to structure and develop this article. In particular, inputs from Jesse Ribot have improved the text. Thanks are also due to the journal's reviewers for illuminating and instructive comments and suggestions. We thank all respondents who participated in the research.

Notes

¹ Gaining access is the process by which one establishes access generally, while access control is about mediating the access of others, and maintenance of access is opening up access for oneself or others via someone with access control (Ribot and Peluso 2003).

² This is a certificate provided by the Forestry Commission to charcoal merchants to allow transport of charcoal from production sites to the cities. The certificate is issued by district forest offices or at forestry checkpoints along major roads.

Additional information

Funding

This study forms part of the project “Property, Access and Exclusion along the Charcoal Commodity Chain in Ghana” (AX) funded by the Danish Research Council for Development Research (Danida) under grant no. 14-03KU.