Forr a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery and exploitation of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. Countries dependent on oil, gas, and mining have tended to have weaker long-run growth, higher rates of poverty, and greater income inequality than less resource-abundant economies. For these resource producing economies relative prices make it more difficult to diversify into activities outside of the resource sector, limiting structural change. 

Droughts and floods are some of the major climatic hazards in the semi-arid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Climate change affects the periodicity and severity of such hazards, and eventually the well-being of many rural communities in the region, including semi-arid Ghana. Enhancing the resilience of local communities to droughts and floods would be a necessary step to meet different national development priorities. The aim of this chapter is to assess the perceived community resilience to recurrent floods and droughts induced by climate change.

We investigate the effect of the informal sector and a range of governance indicators on both global and local pollutants for a panel of 58 countries during 1996–2011. The analysis employs a fixed effects-instrumental variable generalized method of moments approach. We find that the size of the informal sector has a significant impact on environmental quality, which is conditional on the level of economic development.

Abstract

Highlights

• Consumption of firewood decreases while charcoal and LPG increases with land-use change/intensity The factors that determine the choice of energy included Land-use change/intensity and the livelihood activities.

• Sustainable energy policy should embrace energy stacking and strongly encourage reforestation.

Highlights

• A new spatial pattern of soil organic carbon and soil pH for the cocoa districts and agroecological zones of Ghana.

• Unsuitably low cocoa soil organic and strong acidity.

• A loss of soil organic carbon in a pattern that reflects historic boom-bust cycle of cocoa hot and cold spots transitions.

• Homogeneity of soil organic carbon is moderate within a longer range than soil pH.

The growth-induced effects of financial development have been well-established in the empirical literature, as well as the significance of financial development to energy demand behavior. However, the empirical evidence on the relationship between financial development and energy intensity remains sparse in the literature. Given the multifaceted nature of the effects of financial development, the proposed relationship seems a complex one and warrants an empirical investigation.

Highlights

Both in the United States and in Europe there is ongoing work on reversing habitat fragmentation and the attendant loss in biodiversity in river systems caused by hydropower and other developments. Fish ladders and other measures are being introduced to restore the connectivity in river systems. In this paper, we set up a theoretical model to investigate what the conditions are for such an investment to be socially profitable.