Frank Kwaku Agyei

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

In many sub-Saharan African countries, numerous studies ascribe biases and inconsistencies in agropastoral policies to the perennial farmer–herder conflicts. However, insights into the assumptions underlying agropastoral policies and the strategies that actors involved in the conflict use to influence these policies are limited in countries with hi...

Increased conservation action to protect more habitat and species is fueling a vigorous debate about the relative effectiveness of different sorts of protected areas. Here we review the literature that compares the effectiveness of protected areas managed by states and areas managed by Indigenous peoples and/or local communities. We argue that thes...

Charcoal is a primary urban energy source throughout Africa; it is also blamed for massive environmental harm, in particular deforestation and forest degradation. Despite its centrality to urbanization, rural economies, and contemporary environmental transformations, however, charcoal's politics have been relatively underexplored. This article deve...

Is charcoal a sustainable energy source in Africa? This is a crucial question, given charcoal's key importance to urban energy. In today's dominant policy narrative – the charcoal-crisis narrative – charcoal is deemed incompatible with sustainable and modern energy, blamed for looming ecological catastrophe, and demanding replacement. However, an e...

The role of customary authorities in decentralized natural resource management is a subject of debate among conservation scientists and practitioners. This review article provides aggregate insights into what literature says. More of published articles on the subject matter are supportive of customary authorities playing roles in decentralized natu...

The study sought to unearth the immediate causes and underlying factors that fuel cocoa-driven deforestation in Ghana through four pathways: semi-structured interviews, participatory rural appraisal techniques, facilitated community workshops and field observations in five forest-fringe and two admitted communities of Ghana's Ashanti and Western No...

Policy recommendations: 1. Standardized certification scheme Ghana COCOBOD should collaborate with relevant CSOs including the GCCP to finalize the development and use of a single standardized certification scheme that integrates the strengths of the existing standards. 2. Mandate certification standards CSOs must start discussions to make cocoa ce...

The paper examines the community representation outcomes of the modified taungya system (MTS) as a decentralized forest management intervention. It addresses how reforms in the name of decentralized forest governance and community participation have reinforced or weakened democratic representation in Ghana. Following both quantitative and qualitati...

Property theory suggests that in legal pluralist societies people secure rights to resources by seeking out institutions that can sanction and validate their claims. This validation legitimates their property claims. Simultaneously, the institutions build and solidify their authority as property-granting entities vis-à-vis competing authorities. In...

This policy brief analyses the underlying drivers of cocoa encroachment in the High Forest Zone of Ghana. It is based on literature review, analysis of satellite images in Krokosua Hills, Sui River and Tano Offin forest reserves; and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) in seven fringe communities. The three reserves, form part of the six Hotspot In...

This policy brief analyses the underlying drivers of cocoa encroachment in the High Forest Zone of Ghana. It is based on literature review, analysis of satellite images in Krokosua Hills, Sui River and Tano Offin forest reserves; and participatory rural appraisal in seven fringe communities. The results showed that there has been massive deforestat...

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 acc...

In Africa, charcoal is the main source of energy for cooking and heating in urban households. Charcoal supply produces great wealth and engages remarkable number of people. In spite of its economic significance, the extent to which charcoal income reduces poverty is debatable. This study addresses the questions: (1) What profits are reaped by the d...

Are lucrative charcoal markets in Africa reducing poverty for people in the trade? In spite of its economic significance , the extent to which charcoal income reduces poverty is debatable. This article applies commodity-chain analysis to Ghana's charcoal commodity chain to describe the characteristics of actors, and to quantify and explain the prof...

Are lucrative charcoal markets in Africa reducing poverty for people in the trade? In spite of its economic significance, the extent to which charcoal income reduce poverty is debatable. This article applies commodity-chain analysis to Ghana’s charcoal commodity chain to describe the characteristics of actors, and to quantify and explain the profit...

Effective management of natural resources can be constrained or facilitated by their institutional frameworks, and policy to practice transfer challenges. The questions at the centre of this paper are: to what extent does implementation of forest interventions follow their policies, and what challenges exist for policy to practice transfers? In Gha...

p class="emsd"> Climate change risks are wide spread, and they are transforming the socio-environmental infrastructure of economic development. Whether they are included or not in the development of national adaptation strategies, rural populations continue to employ diverse climate adaptation strategies to withstand climate induced vulnerabilities...

The Mfantseman Municipality (used interchangeably to include the Ekumfi District in this report) is home to one of the most vibrant markets in the central region; the Mankessim Market, with a strategic position along the Accra-Cape coast road leading to the oil rich city Takoradi. But it is one of the poorest municipalities in Ghana with 52% of the...

The thriving business of chainsaw milling (CSM) continues to engage attention of policy makers and diverse stakeholders who are looking for appropriate measures to reverse its trend and improve forest governance. Chainsaw milling activities accounts for about 84% of lumber supplied to the domestic timber market with an estimated 497,000 m3 and a ma...

Well-being, a condition of positive physical, social and mental state of life, has become a prime focus of research in recent years as people seek to achieve and sustain it. Interacting with the natural environment has been established as a way of acquiring well-being benefits. However, the extent to which well-being depends on various aspects of t...

Wellbeing has always been the focus of human attention as people seek to achieve and sustain it. It has been suggested that interacting with the natural environment is a way of acquiring wellbeing benefits however, the extent to which wellbeing depends on various aspects of the environment, particularly biodiversity, has been poorly studied. I inve...