Segregated Debate on Biofuels in Ghana? Options for Policymaking

Biofuels has been an increasingly debated issue since the beginning of this century. Some scholars emphasize the risks of biofuels on livelihood in Ghana; while others argue positively for the rural development and energy security potential of biofuels. These serve as the rationale of this study. This objective was to investigate ambivalence in the scholarly discourse on biofue ls for Ghana.

It also assessed the implications of the present dichotomy of scholarly opinion on policy making by government. The study employed a systematic methodology and search strategy that made use of database searches in the scholarly and grey literature published recently by using the search terms „biofuel‟ and „Ghana‟.

The findings show a major skepticism - optimism divide in the biofuel discourse and its potential to improve livelihoods in Ghana. This study attempts to describe this dispute by quantifying different scholars‟ position on a scale from pessimist to optimist. This is not meant to be reductionist or over simplistic, but rather the work we have done provide an illustrative perspective and overview of the scholarly divisions and gaps.

Findings suggest that the biofuel discussions would benefit greatly from less segregation of effort and increased collaboration especially among scholars from opposing schools of thoughts. This would possibly help to provide invaluable information required by d ecision makers. Findings also suggest the possible use (in the absent of clear consensus), of information by knowledge networks including the GBEP, RSB, GNESD among others.