Short Abstract

This panel will explore the implementation of green transition investments (extraction of critical raw minerals and/or renewable energy projects) and the implications for local communities and/or government authorities, which are often on the frontline of conflicts created by such investments.

Long Abstract

Investments in renewable energy projects and extraction of critical raw minerals (CRMs) essential for green technologies (wind turbines and solar parks), are projected to grow significantly across Africa. However, both CRMs and renewable energy projects, also referred to as green transition investments, require substantial land that is often central to local communities’ livelihoods. This presents a core dilemma for African governments, international donors and investors. Although green transition investments are urgently needed to tackle climate change both globally and locally, “green extractivism” breeds opposition due to the negative impacts on local communities, causing multilayered conflicts placing local government authorities in precarious positions, and threatening the investment’s legitimacy and sustainability. As such, exploring green transition investments including understanding who benefits/loses, how decisions are made, which institutional arrangements are promoted, and the implications for democratic participation provides multifaced evidence of how such processes work (or do not work) in practice. Conceptually, the panel aspires to develop scientific understandings of how local communities and local government authorities understand the value of green transition investments within complex transnational and national institutional arrangements. On this basis, the panel welcomes papers that are interdisciplinary with perspectives inspired by, but not limited to, political economy, geography, political ecology, sociology, and anthropology, and which use a multiplicity of methods to critically examine contemporary examples of green transition investments across Africa.

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