Dr Pius Siakwah
IASH-SSPS Research Fellow, January - March 2025
Home Institution: University of Ghana
Pius Siakwah is a development and resource geographer, and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Ghana, Institute of African Studies for the past five years. Pius's teaching and research interests include resource geographies, extractive resources governance, political economy, sustainable development, renewable energy transitions, climate change smart agriculture, and tourism. Currently, Pius is actively involved in the teaching, mentoring and supervising master's and PhD students at IAS, University of Ghana. Over the past five years, Pius has published in leading journals and book outlets in geography, natural resources, development studies, energy, agriculture, and tourism. Current research includes mining and community conflicts, extractive industry and development, sustainable energy transitions, climate change and local agricultural practices, and precarious work. Academic and professional training includes PhD at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, an MA in Geography at Brock University, Canada, and a BA from the University of Ghana.
Project title: Repeating the curse of extractives: exploring contestations in governance and investment regimes of the emerging critical minerals industry in Ghana
Ghana has been the hub of hard mineral extraction, including gold for over 100 years and the country has historically been known as the Gold Coast. While big companies are involved in large-scale mining, some locals are engaged in artisanal small-scale mining (ASM). However, the challenges historically associated with ASM have been exacerbated by the use of heavy equipment. Since 2010 commercial quantities of oil and gas have been added to Ghana’s extractive resource mix. The irony is that years of resource extraction have not led to structural transformation and economic development in Ghana. Most of the resources are exported in raw form which does not lead to value addition or the contractual agreements are sometimes questioned. The recent discovery of lithium in 2017 in Ghana has been greeted with mixed reactions regarding the potential impact on national and local development, given the disappointments with minerals such as gold and oil. Atlantic Lithium Company is initiating Ghana’s first lithium flagship project – Ewoyaa Lithium. the high-grade lithium is supposed to start commercial production in 2025. The broader question is how Ghana position itself in the emerging lithium industry space in light of the importance of green minerals in the global energy transition. The research is framed within the larger context of external exploitation and creation of scarcity, doublethink relative to the superiority of Western ideas, and the discourse of civilising African countries in managing resources – a dual mandate. The study raises questions about how Ghana can mitigate the governance challenges of the extractive industry in the emerging lithium sector, examining the contracts, benefit sharing, value chain, and structural transformation to make lithium discovery count. Using qualitative methods through discourse and document analysis, we interrogate the governance and contracts regime, financing, technology and investment, and value chain in the critical minerals and how these inform energy transition discourses in Ghana. What is the country's stake and nature of the value chain and who controls it? How do financing and technology shape benefits in the extractive space? Will Ghana Lithium find another race to the bottom? Initial assessments show signs of a tendency to repeat mistakes in areas of contract, elite capture of the stake, value addition, local community agitations and discourse about a race to the bottom.