Unraveling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa

In the past decade, biofuel production expanded significantly across Africa, with jatropha (for biodiesel) and sugarcane (for bioethanol) attracting the most attention. Sugarcane ethanol has a proven commercial model with excellent energy balances. Jatropha is not yet proven commercially but it might offer valuable socioeconomic benefits in Africa, particularly for small-scale farmers.

For several African countries the biofuel policy priorities at national level revolved around energy security and rural development, as well as attempts to take advantage of carbon finance where available. Some countries have relied heavily on ambitious state-sponsored investment/expansion plans, whereas others have encouraged private sector investment. Foreign investors have been actively seeking out African land for the establishment of feedstock production. In fact almost all projects in the region to date have been based on direct foreign investment or international NGO initiatives.

Despite this policy and investor interest, several early biofuel ventures collapsed. There is evidence to suggest that was a result of i) lack of proper agronomic knowledge (particularly for jatropha), ii) appropriate institutions that could regulate the nascent biofuel sector, iii) investor caution during the 2008 global financial crisis, iv) lack of market development and v) a growing understanding of the potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts. In several cases this left the poor local communities, even poorer. Some of these poverty outcomes are directly related to the loss of access of local communities to natural ecosystems (and the goods and services they provided). This implies that there are significant linkages between the environmental and socioeconomic performance of biofuel projects but we still have an incomplete understanding of these interrelations in Africa lest developed countries.

Considering the above, the aim of this interdisciplinary project is to provide clear empirical evidence on whether, and how, biofuel production and use can improve human wellbeing and become an agent of poverty alleviation in African least developed countries (LDCs). The understanding of the environmental impact of biofuel production must be a pre-requisite for understanding the true human wellbeing and poverty alleviation effects of biofuel expansion in Africa.

In order to answer these questions we have carefully selected six case studies in Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland that reflect the main modes of biofuel production and use encountered across Africa. The comparative analysis of their performance can provide important insights for the poverty alleviation potential of these diverse biofuel strategies in Africa least developed countries. Furthermore, Malawi and Mozambique are low-income countries while Swaziland is low-middle income country. As a result our research can have a great development impact to the lives of poor people in these countries. Finally, our strong focus on Malawi is due to the fact that Malawi is the only African country that has been continuously blending biofuels with conventional transport fuel (up to 20%) in the past 30 years. The success of Malawi with biofuel production will allow us to identify what has contributed to Malawi's success, and the lessons than can be learned and transferred to other countries in the region.

Overall, our vision is to provide knowledge that can inform the development of evidence-based institutional mechanisms for enhancing the poverty alleviation potential of biofuel projects in Africa LDCs, and to reduce the risks of such ventures, particularly to poor smallholders. We will disseminate our results to a wide variety of stakeholders including local biofuel/feedstock producers, national, regional and the global policy-makers, practitioners, NGOs and academics in the case countries and beyond.

The collapse of biofuel projects left large local populations in Africa least developed countries (LDCs) much worse off that they were prior to getting involved in the biofuel chain. In this sense the ultimate beneficiaries of our research will be poor people involved (or affected) by biofuel projects in Africa LDCs. This will include feedstock smallholders and employees in large plantations, as well the communities adjacent to biofuel projects that depend for their livelihoods on the ecosystems converted for feedstock production.

Furthermore, several other stakeholders such as national/international policy-makers, the private sector and civil society can have a vested interest into biofuel projects. In this project we will aim to produce knowledge that can be used directly by companies, certification bodies and NGOs to improve biofuel sustainability as well as by national/international governments and development agencies to ensure that biofuel expansion in Africa LDCs can become a potent agent of poverty alleviation. We will aim to work alongside a number of organizations and diffuse our findings to a wide range of stakeholders including:

Private sector: the companies that operate in our case areas, i.e. Niquel (Mozambique), BERL (Malawi), Cleanstar (Mozambique), Dwangwa (Malawi) and SWADE (Swaziland). All these private ventures are welcoming the prospect of this research collaboration, as they believe that obtaining a better understanding of the environmental and social performance of their operations will be beneficial to their stakeholders.

African and international policy-makers: During the development of this proposal we have been in close iterative communication with Prof. Mosad Elmissiry, NEPAD's bioenergy leader. He has a keen interest in our proposed study, and is willing to explore avenues to forge a partnership. In addition the CSIR has strong links with the SADC energy directorate in Gaborone and has worked with them in previous regional bioenergy policy development. SEI has significant experience liaising with EU institutions on biofuels and bioenergy issues, while CJ has worked for several years in Malawi government departments (see Case for Support). During the initial stages of the project we will assess the best strategy to take advantage this existing network in order to make our results relevant to biofuel policy processes.

Certification bodies: Two international initiatives for biofuel certification, The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) and Bonsucro will participate as knowledge partners. Both organisations have developed certification schemes that aim to enhance the sustainability of biofuel production and use. These strategic partnerships will enhance the visibility and the dissemination of our results, and as a result, their impact.

Civil society: We will also partner with Solidaridad Southern Africa. We will aim not only to improve the support package Solidaridad Southern Africa offers to farmers and companies in Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland, but also to disseminate through their global network our results to stakeholders beyond the four case countries.

The main role of the above organizations is to provide the academic partners with feedback and constructive advice from their networks during the implementation of the project. We will actively seek to provide a platform for open discussion of the results and to ensure that the knowledge generated in this project will be useful and relevant to these end-users. We will assess the possibility of coordinating the two regional outreach events in cooperation with them, in order to further promote the impact of our project.

Finally, an important avenue for delivering impact will be through the development of multiple deliverables that go beyond conventional academic papers to include policy reports, side-events in major policy events and videos.