London: A Ghanaian academic at King's College London is leading vital research into how mining is affecting communities in Ghana, Chile, and Australia and how to make their voices heard in decisions about climate and development, while helping create fairer policies for the future. Dr. Clement Sefa-Nyarko, a lecturer in Security, Development and Leadership in Africa at the African Leadership Centre (ALC), was among 77 academics chosen recently by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of its Future Leadership Fellowship (FLF). The FLF provides up to seven years of funding of up to £120 million to support early-career researchers.
According to Ghana News Agency, UKRI's Chief Executive, Professor Sir Ian Chapman, stated that the FLF offered 'long-term support to outstanding researchers, helping them turn bold ideas into innovations that improve lives and livelihoods in the UK and beyond'. With more than a decade's experience in designing, managing, and leading several projects in Africa and the Asia Pacific, Dr. Sefa-Nyarko's area of expertise includes natural resource governance, political theories of the state, and social protection. He will use his FLF to analyze how people understand and experience justice during the shift to cleaner energy.
The project paper highlights that the fellowship is responding to the 'dearth of knowledge that leads to deep contestations over the origins, meaning, and purpose of 'justice' in the transitions to net zero emissions'. 'The methodology offers an exchange of meaning between the producer, author, or storyteller and the audience, which if holistically interpreted, allows them to share a deep sense of reality, whether fictional or factual,' the project paper said. 'It enables the collection and analysis of aspirations that would otherwise be restrained in formal research designs.'
Dr. Sefa-Nyarko, in welcoming the FLF, expressed that it is 'an extraordinary opportunity to contribute to the new, rapidly emerging, often evoked and yet largely evasive, concept of 'justice' in critical minerals governance and the transitions to net zero'. He stated it presents both an opportunity and a challenge, both of which he embraces, and sees King's and all his partners in Australia, Chile, and Ghana as well-placed to support this endeavor to achieve the three-tier objectives of epistemic consensus, global policy relevance, and mining community satisfaction.
The Justice in Critical Minerals Governance and Energy Transitions research program was launched during Africa Week at King's, which ended over the weekend. Professor Frans Berkhout, Assistant Principal King's Climate and Sustainability, commended Dr. Sefa-Nyarko for seeing through 'a small idea flowering into this project across three continents'.
Kayode Fayemi, a one-time Minister of Solid Minerals in Nigeria and currently Visiting Professor at the ALC, highlighted in a keynote address the challenges faced during his tenure as minister. He emphasized that policies were designed for extraction, not development, and pointed out the economic disparities in the value chain of minerals like lithium, from extraction to finished products. Prof Fayemi noted the need for African states to be clear-eyed about the current global dynamics, describing it as a new scramble for Africa, which requires strategic positioning to benefit from the renewed global attention on critical minerals.