Just energy transition in Ghana: community experiences from the fossil-fuel hub in the Ellembelle District

1 Introduction

The global energy system is undergoing a fundamental transformation as countries pursue net-zero emission targets in response to accelerating climate change. Energy-related carbon emissions account for approximately 73% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (International Energy Agency, 2023), necessitating a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasizes that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires halving emissions by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050 (International Panel on Climate Change, 2021). These targets demand unprecedented shifts in energy production, consumption, and governance, with profound implications for communities, workers, and regions economically dependent on fossil fuel extraction. Mounting evidence demonstrates that energy transitions generate uneven impacts, producing winners and losers across geographic scales and social groups (Healy and Barry, 2017; Newell and Mulvaney, 2013). Fossil fuel-dependent communities face economic dislocation, employment losses, and social disruption without proactive policies ensuring equitable outcomes (Carley et al., 2018; Pai et al., 2020). The challenge extends beyond technological substitution to encompass complex questions of social justice, economic restructuring, and democratic governance (McCauley and Heffron, 2018).

“Just transition” frameworks emerged from labor movements in the 1970's, initially focusing on protecting workers in polluting industries (Stevis and Felli, 2015). The concept gained prominence in international climate policy through the 2015 Paris Agreement, which recognized “imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs” (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2015). International Labour Organisation (2015) defines a just transition as greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind. Contemporary scholarship expands these foundations by integrating energy justice dimensions that examine how energy systems produce, reproduce, and potentially transform social inequalities (Jenkins et al., 2016; Sovacool and Dworkin, 2015). Research on just energy transitions has grown substantially in recent years, including in African contexts. Scholars have examined coal phase-out dynamics in South Africa (Cock, 2019; Baker et al., 2014), distributional justice in rapid grid electrification in Kenya (Osano et al., 2022; Gore et al., 2025), natural gas expansion in Nigeria (Ogunbiyi et al., 2021), and energy transition governance in Mozambique (Power et al., 2016). Broader reviews of African energy transition challenges have deepened understanding of financing constraints, policy frameworks, and equity concerns across the continent (Xaba, 2023; Tamasiga, 2024; Nwangwu, 2025). Notwithstanding this growing literature, a persistent gap remains: empirically grounded, community-level studies that integrate multiple justice dimensions, specifically distributional, procedural, and recognition justice, within the lived experiences of populations hosting fossil fuel infrastructure. This gap is particularly acute in West African contexts and in middle-income economies such as Ghana, where national energy transition frameworks are operational but local implementation dynamics remain poorly understood.

Ghana presents a compelling case for examining this gap. The country discovered commercial oil reserves in 2007 offshore the Western Region, with production commencing in 2010 from the Jubilee Field (Obeng-Odoom, 2014). Petroleum became integral to national development, contributing approximately 9% to GDP and generating substantial government revenues (Ackah and Mohammed, 2020). Oil and gas operations are concentrated in the Ellembelle District, which hosts Ghana National Gas Company processing facilities, multinational corporate operations, and critical midstream infrastructure (Ablo, 2015). Simultaneously, Ghana has adopted an ambitious National Energy Transition Framework (2022–2070), projecting a shift from 42.5% renewable electricity in 2020 to 70% by 2030, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2070 (Ministry of Energy Ghana, 2022). The framework anticipates creating 1.4 million jobs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and clean cooking sectors while positioning natural gas as a “transition fuel.” Peak oil production is projected in 2029, after which declining revenues threaten communities whose economic development has been structured around petroleum extraction.

This dual trajectory creates unique tensions. The Ellembelle District exemplifies these dynamics: hosting extensive fossil fuel infrastructure while national production is projected to peak in 2029, after which the District faces an uncertain economic future as the National Energy Transition Framework anticipates a substantial shift toward renewable energy by 2030. However, empirical research examining how national transition commitments translate into community-level outcomes in Ghana remains limited. Existing studies focus predominantly on national policy frameworks, electricity sector reforms, and oil and gas governance (Ackah and Mohammed, 2020; Gyamfi et al., 2022), with insufficient attention to localized socio-economic impacts and justice dimensions. This study addresses the following overarching research question: how is Ghana's commitment to a just energy transition experienced by communities at the center of fossil fuel development in the Ellembelle District, and what justice dimensions does this experience reveal? In brief, the study finds that this commitment remains largely unrealised at the community level: residents experience systematic exclusion from employment, governance, and energy benefits despite hosting the infrastructure on which the transition depends, revealing a structural pattern of energy injustice across the distributional, procedural, and recognition dimensions examined in this paper.

Four specific objectives, directly linked to this research question, guide the study:

• To assess how national energy transition policies translate into local employment and economic outcomes in the Ellembelle District, including local content policy implementation effectiveness.
• To examine skills development barriers and opportunities facing community members transitioning between fossil fuel and emerging energy sectors.
• To evaluate distributional, procedural, and recognition justice dimensions of the energy transition as experienced by affected communities.
• To identify structural governance gaps constraining equitable transition outcomes and derive lessons for just transition theory and practice in fossil fuel-dependent communities.

The paper proceeds as follows: section 2 presents the theoretical framework and situates the study within existing scholarship on just transitions and energy justice. Section 3 describes the qualitative research design and study area. Section 4 presents findings organized around key justice dimensions. Section 5 discusses findings in relation to theory and comparative African cases. Section 6 concludes with policy implications and research directions.

2 Theoretical framework and literature review

2.1 Energy justice: theoretical foundation

This study employs energy justice as its primary analytical framework. Energy justice scholarship examines how energy systems reflect and reproduce social inequalities, and how these can be transformed toward more equitable outcomes (Jenkins et al., 2016; Sovacool and Dworkin, 2015). McCauley et al. (2013) identify three core tenets, each of which structures the analytical approach in this study. Distributional justice examines the fair allocation of costs and benefits across social groups and geographic spaces. In energy transition contexts, this requires asking who gains employment in emerging sectors, who bears the environmental costs of fossil fuel operations, and who benefits from the economic gains generated by resource extraction. Carley and Konisky (2020) demonstrate that distributional outcomes frequently disadvantage low-income and minority communities, which host energy infrastructure while receiving limited economic returns. In African contexts, this pattern is well documented in extractive industries, where resource revenues flow to national governments and multinational corporations, while host communities experience environmental degradation and limited access to benefits (Idemudia, 2014; Ovadia, 2016).

Procedural justice addresses the inclusiveness of decision-making processes. Communities affected by energy development should participate meaningfully in planning, project selection, grievance resolution, and transition governance. Reed (2008) identifies key elements of genuine procedural justice: facilitated needs assessments, transparent selection criteria, community representation in decisions, and effective grievance mechanisms. Deficit in procedural justice, manifesting as tokenistic consultation or outright exclusion, undermines the legitimacy of energy development and transition planning, and erodes community trust in governance institutions (Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Cornwall, 2008). Recognition justice concerns respect for diverse identities, knowledge systems, and cultural values in energy governance (Schlosberg, 2013; Walker, 2012). This dimension is particularly relevant in African contexts where customary governance institutions, traditional ecological knowledge, and community land rights intersect with formal energy regulatory frameworks. Marginalization of traditional authorities and disregard for local environmental knowledge constitute recognition failures that undermine both procedural inclusion and distributional equity (Ubink, 2008).

These three dimensions are analytically distinct but operationally interconnected. Recognition failures enable procedural exclusion, which in turn enables distributional injustice. Applied to the Ellembelle context, this integrated framework enables systematic assessment of whether justice principles are recognized and applied in practice, or fail to be, across the spectrum of community experiences with energy development.

2.2 Just transitions in African contexts

Scholarship on just energy transitions in Africa has grown substantially since the early 2020's, reflecting both the urgency of the climate challenge and the continent's distinctive energy development context (Xaba, 2023; Tamasiga, 2024; Nwangwu, 2025). Africa faces a dual imperative: expanding energy access for an estimated 600 million people lacking electricity while pursuing low-carbon development pathways consistent with climate commitments (International Energy Agency, 2022; Sokona et al., 2012). This differs fundamentally from Global North just transition contexts, where universal energy access exists, and transitions involve replacing existing infrastructure rather than building new systems to address poverty alongside decarbonization (Power et al., 2016; Winkler et al., 2017). The research gap that this study addresses is therefore not an absence of African energy transition scholarship, but rather a relative scarcity of studies that: (a) ground analysis at the community level within specific localities, (b) integrate multiple justice dimensions simultaneously rather than focusing on policy frameworks or technology adoption in isolation, and (c) examine middle-income, petroleum-dependent contexts outside the South African coal belt, which has received disproportionate scholarly attention. South Africa's coal phase-out represents the most extensively studied African just transition case. Baker et al. (2014) analyse the political economy of transition in South Africa, demonstrating how entrenched fossil-fuel interests and institutional path dependencies shape the pace and equity of transitions, even where policy frameworks are progressive. Cock (2019) documents the labor movement's engagement with just transition demands in South Africa, while Chetty et al. (2023) assess reskilling and economic diversification initiatives for coal-dependent workers in Mpumalanga. Collectively, this body of work demonstrates that formalized just transition plans do not automatically produce equitable outcomes without robust enforcement mechanisms, institutional capacity, and genuine power-sharing with affected communities.

Kenya's rapid expansion of grid electricity offers contrasting insights. Gore et al. (2025) apply a distributional justice lens to citizen experiences of Kenya's green energy transition, finding that grid electricity access remains concentrated among urban areas and institutions of high regional importance, while less well-resourced communities and users experience more frequent power outages and unequal benefit distribution. Osano et al. (2022) similarly document tensions between national energy development imperatives and local livelihood concerns in Kenyan energy landscapes. These studies from East Africa demonstrate that even renewable energy development, when governed without adequate attention to procedural and recognition justice, can reproduce distributional inequities familiar from fossil fuel extraction. Power et al. (2016) examine the political economy dynamics of energy transitions in Mozambique, finding that structural barriers, including limited institutional capacity, donor dependency, and elite capture, constrain the equity of transitions even in contexts where international climate finance is available. Their analysis foregrounds how global decarbonization pressures can conflict with national development priorities in lower-income African contexts, creating governance tensions that translate into community-level injustices. Nigeria's petroleum sector provides the closest regional parallel to the Ghanaian case. Ogunbiyi et al. (2021) examine gas-to-power programs in Nigeria, documenting how national energy policy objectives diverge from community-level outcomes in oil-producing regions. Idemudia (2014) documents extensive evidence of corporate social responsibility failures in the Niger Delta, where opacity and unilateral project selection undermine trust and generate conflict. Ovadia (2016) demonstrates that local content policies across African petro-states frequently fail to deliver employment and skills benefits to host communities, due to elite capture and weak enforcement.

This comparative landscape establishes the analytical context for the Ellembelle study. Ghana shares structural features with these African cases while presenting distinct characteristics: a democratic governance framework, relatively functional national institutions, an explicit National Energy Transition Framework, and a concentrated geographic locus of oil and gas operations in a single district. These features make Ellembelle a theoretically productive case for examining just transition dynamics, precisely because the policy architecture is in place while implementation failures persist. The study, therefore, contributes to a literature that increasingly moves beyond policy analysis to interrogate how transition commitments are experienced at the community level.

2.3 Ghana's energy sector and local content challenges

Ghana's petroleum industry generated approximately 9% of GDP following the commencement of commercial production in 2010 and created significant employment concentrated in the Western Region (Ackah and Mohammed, 2020; Obeng-Odoom, 2014). However, the sector has faced sustained criticism regarding environmental impacts, limited local content, and uneven distribution of benefits (Ablo, 2015, 2020). The Local Content and Local Participation in Petroleum Activities Regulations (LI 2204, 2013) aimed to maximize domestic employment and procurement, requiring operators to submit annual local content plans and meet graduated targets for Ghanaian employment across skill categories. However, implementation challenges persist, including limited enforcement capacity, definitional ambiguities, skills gaps, and company non-compliance (Ablo, 2015). Research in oil-producing communities documents systematic exclusion of residents from skilled positions, with external workers dominating professional and technical roles while residents fill temporary, low-skill positions (Ablo, 2020). Ghana's National Energy Transition Framework (2022–2070) charts an ambitious path toward net-zero emissions by 2070, with interim targets including 70% renewable electricity by 2030 (Ministry of Energy Ghana, 2022). The framework projects the creation of 1.4 million jobs in renewables, energy efficiency, and clean cooking. Natural gas is positioned as a transition fuel facilitating gradual decarbonization. Peak oil production is projected in 2029, after which declining revenues raise concerns about economic dislocation in communities like Ellembelle that have structured development around petroleum extraction.

2.4 Employment, skills, and the just transition

Employment impacts of energy transitions involve complex dynamics requiring nuanced analysis. Renewable energy sectors create more jobs per unit of energy produced compared to fossil fuels (International Renewable Energy Agency, 2021), but these opportunities do not automatically benefit displaced fossil fuel workers due to geographic mismatches, skills gaps, and timing discrepancies (Pai et al., 2020; Pollin and Callaci, 2019). International evidence from coal phase-outs confirms these challenges. United States coal mining regions experienced employment losses and population decline without adequate transition support (Carley et al., 2018). Germany's coal phase-out involves extensive worker protections, including retraining programs and income support (Oei et al., 2020). These cases underscore that proactive, institutionally grounded policy is essential for managing employment transitions equitably.

Skills development is a critical transition lever. Renewable energy technologies require new competencies, including solar installation, wind maintenance, battery storage management, smart grid operations, and energy-efficiency auditing. However, technical and vocational training systems in developing countries frequently lack the capacity to deliver these skills at scale, facing challenges including outdated curricula, insufficient equipment, limited instructor expertise, and inadequate industry linkages (Arto et al., 2016). The disconnect between training provision and labor market needs means graduates cannot find employment that matches their qualifications, creating skills mismatches that most severely disadvantage low-income applicants. Effective skills development requires coordinated approaches linking educational institutions, industry engagement, and government policy, ensuring accessible training with clear pathways to employment (International Renewable Energy Agency, 2021; International Labour Organisation, 2018). The geographic concentration of training provision in urban centers systematically disadvantages rural and peri-urban populations, functioning as a de facto selection mechanism that excludes the most marginalized. Gender dimensions amplify these barriers: women with childcare responsibilities cannot easily relocate, and technical training systems in sub-Saharan Africa typically privilege young unmarried males, systematically excluding women (Palmer, 2009).

2.5 Community participation and environmental justice

Community participation deficits represent a core procedural justice concern in energy extractive contexts. Literature across African petro-states documents patterns where communities hosting infrastructure are excluded from decisions affecting their lives, from recruitment and CSR project selection to environmental management and transition planning (Idemudia, 2014; Hilson, 2012). These patterns reflect broader governance failures, including the concentration of decision-making authority in central government agencies and multinational corporations, and the marginalization of subnational governance institutions, including district assemblies and traditional authorities. Environmental justice examines how pollution burdens and resource benefits are distributed unequally, with marginalized communities disproportionately bearing the impacts of extraction (Bullard, 1990; Schlosberg and Collins, 2014). African environmental justice literature documents repeated patterns: Niger Delta communities in Nigeria host infrastructure that produces over 90% of export revenues while experiencing extensive environmental degradation (Idemudia, 2014); coalfield communities in South Africa bear the pollution while benefiting minimally (McDonald, 2009). These cases reveal what Lerner (2010) terms “sacrifice zones,” geographies that bear disproportionate burdens, subsidizing consumption elsewhere. A particularly salient concept for this study is the “energy poverty paradox,” where communities hosting energy infrastructure experience energy poverty due to pricing structures and policy failures (Bouzarovski and Petrova, 2015). In sub-Saharan Africa, profound inequalities exist between resource extraction and domestic energy access: Nigeria produces over 2 million barrels of oil daily, yet over 40% of the population lacks reliable access to electricity (Aliyu et al., 2013). Energy justice frameworks recognize energy access as a right, arguing that communities bearing infrastructure burdens deserve priority access to benefits through subsidized pricing, revenue sharing, and community-scale renewable projects (Heffron and McCauley, 2017; Sovacool and Dworkin, 2015).

3 Research design and methods

3.1 Study area

The Ellembelle District, established in 2008 in Ghana's Western Region, covers 1,700 square km and has a population of 87,523 (Ghana Statistical Service, 2021). The district capital is Nkroful, but economic activity is concentrated in Esiama (the largest settlement, with approximately 18,000 residents), Atuabo (the site of Ghana National Gas Company's processing facilities), and Sanzule (a coastal fishing community). The district was carved from the Nzema East District through Legislative Instrument 1923 to enhance administrative efficiency and accelerate local development. Ellembelle hosts Ghana's primary oil and gas midstream infrastructure. The Ghana National Gas Company processes natural gas from the offshore Jubilee, Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme, and Sankofa fields at its Atuabo facility. The Anokyi Mainline Compressor Station handles offshore natural gas, and multinational operators ENI and Quantum Power operate concessions within the district. Quantum Power's 200-megawatt gas-to-power thermal plant is also located in the district. This infrastructure fundamentally transformed the district's economic profile following the commencement of commercial production in 2010, shifting a primarily agricultural and fishing economy toward an energy enclave (Ablo, 2015). Before oil and gas development, agriculture (cocoa, palm oil, coconut, cassava) and artisanal fishing constituted the primary economic activities.

Despite hosting substantial energy infrastructure, Ellembelle presents striking development paradoxes. Electricity access stands at 68% of households, up from 42% in 2010, though supply reliability remains poor (Ghana Statistical Service, 2021). Only 12% of households access liquefied petroleum gas for cooking, with the majority depending on firewood (58%) and charcoal (26%), despite the district hosting major gas processing facilities. Piped water connections reach only 34% of households. Healthcare provision is inadequate, with a doctor-to-population ratio of approximately 1:15,000, well below WHO recommendations. Critically for this study, the district contains no technical or vocational training institutions, requiring residents to travel 70–90 km to Takoradi for skills development. These paradoxes establish the empirical context through which energy justice concerns are examined. The district's trajectory makes it theoretically important beyond its local significance. Peak oil production is projected nationally in 2029, after which Ellembelle faces economic vulnerability as the sector that structured its development begins to decline. This impending transition creates urgency regarding questions of employment, skills, community participation, and access to benefits that this study addresses.

3.2 Qualitative research design

A qualitative research design was employed to examine community experiences of the just energy transition in the Ellembelle District. Qualitative approaches are appropriate for investigating complex social phenomena, capturing nuanced experiences, and understanding the contextual factors that shape outcomes (Creswell and Poth, 2018; Maxwell, 2013). The research followed interpretivist epistemology, recognizing that social realities are constructed through interactions, meanings, and interpretations (Bryman, 2016). This epistemological orientation is consistent with the energy justice framework's concern for how communities experience and interpret transition policies, rather than measuring objective transition outcomes alone.

The study employed multiple qualitative methods to ensure methodological triangulation (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Patton, 2015). Each method was selected to serve a distinct analytical function, as elaborated below.

3.2.1 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)

Six FGDs were conducted with community members, engaging 8–12 participants per session (total of 58 FGD participants). Groups were organized purposively to capture differentiated community experiences: two groups comprised adult men from Esiama and Atuabo communities, including both those employed in energy sector support roles and those in agriculture and fishing; two groups comprised youth (aged 18–35) from Nkroful and Sanzule, focusing on employment aspirations and skills barriers; and two groups comprised women from Esiama and Sanzule, examining livelihood impacts, energy access concerns, and environmental health perceptions. This structured differentiation allowed cross-group comparison and captured gender and age dimensions of justice concerns. Sessions lasted 90–120 min, were conducted in Nzema and Twi languages with translation support from research assistants fluent in both languages and English, and explored employment experiences, skills needs, livelihood strategies, energy access realities, and transition perceptions using semi-structured discussion guides developed from the energy justice framework. FGDs primarily served to generate community-grounded perspectives on the distributional and recognition-justice dimensions.

Key Informant Interviews (KIIs). Fifteen semi-structured KIIs were conducted individually with district-level actors, including Ellembelle District Assembly officials (n = 4, including the District Chief Executive's representative, the Development Planning Officer, and District Budget Officer), traditional leaders and sub-chiefs (n = 3, from Atuabo, Sanzule, and Esiama), civil society organization representatives (n = 3, including an environmental NGO representative), business owners supplying goods and services to energy companies (n = 3), and gender-focused community development workers (n = 2). KIIs were used to elicit institutional perspectives on policy implementation, governance dynamics, local content compliance, and community development challenges, with a specific focus on procedural justice dimensions. Average interview duration was 60–75 min. Interviews were conducted in English or with interpretation where required.

3.2.2 Expert consultations

Eighteen Ghana Gas Company personnel participated in a structured expert consultation session with the Ghana Gas Engineering Department. This session combined elements of a group interview and a structured dialogue, with participants sharing professional perspectives on the requirements for technical skills, employment practices, training provision, and transition planning within the company. This method differed from community FGDs in that it sought expert insider knowledge about operational and institutional dynamics rather than community experience. Participants occupied engineering, technical operations, human resources, and public relations roles, providing a cross-functional institutional perspective. The session lasted approximately 2.5 h. The expert consultation generated data on skills requirements, recruitment practices as viewed from within the company, and corporate perspectives on local content and community engagement, which were then analyzed alongside community accounts.

3.2.3 Community Town hall meetings

Three community town hall meetings were organized in collaboration with the Ellembelle District Assembly, engaging 25–40 diverse stakeholders per session (total: approximately 100 attendees; 127 unique participants across all methods after accounting for individuals who attended multiple data collection activities). Town halls were held in Esiama, Atuabo, and Sanzule. These structured collective dialogues brought together community members, traditional leaders, local government officials, youth representatives, and women's group leaders for open discussions on the impacts and priorities of the energy transition. Town halls served a distinct function from FGDs: they enabled collective deliberation and provided space for stakeholders to respond to and challenge each other's perspectives in a public forum, producing data on contested narratives and areas of community consensus. They also served a participatory function aligned with the study's commitment to procedural values. Informed consent was obtained from all participants at the start of each session, and attendees were informed that the meetings were part of a research study.

3.2.4 Data integration and participant profile

The four methods were integrated through triangulation: convergent findings across methods were treated as analytically robust. At the same time, divergences were examined to understand the institutional or positional perspectives that generated different accounts. For example, corporate claims about local content compliance were systematically compared against community accounts of exclusion from recruitment, and discrepancies were analyzed as evidence of accountability gaps rather than resolved in favor of either account. Table 1 summarizes participant characteristics across all methods.

Table 1. Participant profile summary.

3.3 Data analysis

Audio-recorded sessions were transcribed verbatim and translated into English where recorded in local languages, with back-translation checks performed on a 20% sample to verify accuracy. Transcripts were analyzed using Braun and Clarke (2006) reflexive thematic analysis approach. An initial reading of all transcripts generated open codes capturing recurring patterns, participant experiences, and analytical observations. Codes were then grouped into candidate themes aligned with the three energy justice dimensions (distributional, procedural, and recognition). A deductive-inductive approach was employed, with the energy justice framework providing initial thematic categories. At the same time, inductive coding identified sub-themes that emerged from the data but were not fully captured by the deductive structure, including the energy access paradox and the temporal justice dimension. NVivo 14 software supported data organization, retrieval, and audit-trail maintenance. Final themes were reviewed against the full dataset to ensure they accurately represented the range of participant accounts, including minority or divergent perspectives that qualified dominant patterns.

3.4 Reflexivity and positionality

Reflexivity regarding researcher positionality was maintained throughout the study (England, 1994; Sultana, 2007). The research team comprises Ghanaian academics affiliated with Ghanaian institutions, including the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Sunyani. This insider positioning facilitated access to community trust, language competency, and contextual knowledge of Ghana's energy governance landscape. It also required reflexive attention to potential biases: familiarity with national policy narratives might inadvertently frame community accounts as “deficits” relative to policy ideals rather than as legitimate critiques of governance failures. This risk was managed by consistently grounding interpretation in participant accounts and by engaging team members from different disciplinary positions (land management, renewable energy engineering, environmental studies) to challenge one another's interpretations during analysis. The expert consultation with Ghana Gas personnel required particular reflexive attention. Corporate participants held institutional positions and were interested in the positive representation of company practices. Their accounts were analyzed as institutional narratives rather than as neutral technical information, and discrepancies between corporate and community accounts were preserved rather than resolved during data interpretation. The study ensured that community voices, particularly those of women, youth, and non-elite community members, received analytical weight commensurate with their numbers and their proximity to the justice concerns this study investigates.

3.5 Ethical considerations and limitations

Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Voluntary participation, confidentiality, and the right to withdraw were communicated at the start of each data collection activity. Participant identifiers in quotations are anonymised by role and location. Several methodological limitations warrant acknowledgment. First, purposive sampling ensured relevance but limits generalizability beyond Ellembelle. The district's specific configuration of gas processing, regulatory context, and proximity to Accra may not fully reflect the dynamics of other Ghanaian or West African energy hubs. Second, migration patterns were identified as an objective in the original submission. While community accounts describe in-migration and anecdotal evidence of out-migration concerns, the study's data collection did not include systematic tracking of migration, household panel data, or analysis of population registries. Accordingly, the revised study does not advance claims about migration patterns as a primary analytical contribution. Third, the gender composition of FGDs, while purposively including women's groups, did not achieve gender parity across all methods, reflecting the gendered accessibility constraints that the study itself identifies as a justice concern. Future research should integrate gender-disaggregated sampling more systematically. Fourth, the study was conducted at a single point in time (February–April 2025); longitudinal tracking of transition dynamics would strengthen causal inference about the impacts of transitions.

4 Results

This section presents qualitative findings organized around four themes derived from the energy justice framework: employment access and local content failures (distributional justice); skills development gaps (distributional and recognition justice); community participation deficits (procedural justice); and environmental justice concerns and energy access paradoxes (distributional and recognition justice). Each theme integrates data from multiple methods, with convergences and divergences noted where analytically significant. A synthesis of cross-cutting patterns is presented at the close of the section.

4.1 Employment access and local content implementation failures

Employment concerns dominated across all four data collection methods, emerging as the most consistently raised justice grievance by community participants. Despite the district hosting major national energy infrastructure, residents reported near-total exclusion from skilled and permanent employment opportunities. Community members in FGDs, KIIs, and town hall meetings consistently described a structural pattern: recruitment processes are centralized in Accra, approximately 250 km from the district, effectively excluding residents who lack the financial resources and social networks to navigate capital-city hiring processes.

A youth FGD participant from Nkroful articulated the spatial injustice of this arrangement:

“The government, through the District Assembly and oil and gas companies such as ENI, Quantum, and Ghana Gas, should work together to develop and implement training programmes in the District to train youth to acquire oil and gas relevant skills. Currently, all training programmes are done in Accra and Tarkwa, which are far away. All recruitments are done in Accra. We are expected to travel to Accra to submit applications and attend job interviews, even though the jobs are here in Ellembelle. This is unfair and discourages us from applying, as it is expensive and risky.”

The structural effects of centralized recruitment were corroborated from multiple positions. A male FGD participant from Esiama described outcomes he observed directly:

“The majority of people working in oil and gas companies are from other parts of Ghana, with a few from abroad. Community leaders and the district assembly are neither informed of nor involved in recruitment, as everything is handled in Accra. Few community members or indigenes are employed as cleaners and security personnel temporarily.”

A female youth FGD participant from Sanzule added: “We do not hear companies are recruiting; we only find out when new employees come searching for accommodation. Top management is not from here, and they do not involve community leaders in processes.”

These accounts reveal occupational segregation: residents fill temporary, low-skill roles, primarily cleaning and security, while professional and technical positions are occupied by workers recruited externally. This pattern constitutes distributional injustice in its most direct form: the community bearing infrastructure costs occupies the bottom tier of the employment structure created by that infrastructure.

Critically, national local-content regulations intended to prevent this outcome are not enforced at the district level. An FGD participant employed by the local government explained the governance gap:

“Even though there is a policy on local content to ensure employment of community members by energy companies, there are no initiatives by the government to operationalise it. Our youth and community members were not sensitized to job and skills needs and to the economic benefits the energy industry brings. So we do not have the required skills, such as engineering and gas processing. All engineers are recruited from Accra.”

The Development Planning Officer, interviewed separately in a KII, confirmed that despite national policy requirements, implementation remains inadequate, with energy companies making limited local recruitment efforts. The District Assembly lacks authority to monitor compliance or impose penalties; enforcement authority is vested in the Petroleum Commission in Accra, creating a spatial disjuncture between monitoring authority and implementation sites.

Expert consultation with Ghana Gas personnel produced accounts that partially diverged from community narratives. Several engineers acknowledged that local content compliance fell short of policy targets and that geographic barriers to recruitment disadvantaged Ellembelle residents, but attributed this to skills gaps rather than systemic institutional failures. This divergence was itself analytically informative: the framing of exclusion as a skills deficit rather than a structural governance failure is a recurring pattern in the African extractive industry literature (Ablo, 2015; Fraser and Lungu, 2007), thereby shifting responsibility from corporate and regulatory actors to community members.

4.2 Skills development gaps and training accessibility barriers

Skills gaps emerged as fundamental barriers to employment in both the fossil fuel and emerging renewable energy sectors. Across FGDs, KIIs, and expert consultations, participants consistently identified inadequate and inaccessible training provision as a structural constraint. The district contains no technical or vocational training institutions; the nearest facilities are located in Takoradi, approximately 90 km away.

A Ghana Gas senior engineer (expert consultation) highlighted the specific skills requirements of the energy transition:

“Government or industry-led initiatives such as hackathons, incubation programs, and partnerships with technology companies can help nurture talent. The district has potential in new renewable energy projects because natural gas is recognized as a transition fuel.”

A female engineer from the expert consultation group elaborated on transition-specific skills needs:

“There are opportunities for skills transfer related to new energy technologies, especially recognizing potential for job erasure in traditional fossil fuel roles and the need for more renewable sources. Professionals with technical skills in renewable installation and maintenance are in short supply, as existing workers need training in installing and maintaining technologies such as natural gas, solar, and wind power engineering and management. Skills in energy-efficient building renovation and retrofitting are crucial for reducing consumption.”

These expert accounts confirm that the skills required for the emerging renewable energy sector differ substantially from those in the existing fossil fuel sector, and that the current training infrastructure is inadequate to bridge this gap. The transition, therefore, risks producing a “double exclusion” for Ellembelle residents: excluded from skilled fossil fuel employment now, and potentially excluded from renewable energy employment in the future due to the same structural barriers.

Community members described these barriers in immediate and personal terms. A youth FGD participant from Nkroful explained: “I completed senior high school, but cannot pursue technical training because the nearest vocational school is in Takoradi. My family cannot afford accommodation there, and there is no transport money for commuting daily.” This account, representative of responses across youth FGDs, illustrates how geographic and financial barriers to training operate cumulatively to exclude marginalized groups.

A Ghana Gas Public Relations Officer (expert consultation) identified an institutional pathway for addressing these gaps:

“Government should work closely with the District Assembly to sensitize catchment communities on opportunities and challenges presented by energy operations. The government could develop initiatives to help youth and community members acquire relevant skills for recruitment in the energy sector. Also, the Business Advisory Center at the District Assembly can assist local businesses to expand to meet energy companies' service needs.”

The Development Planning Officer confirmed in a KII that while some companies implement CSR-funded training programs, these lack sustainability and clear employment pathways and frequently take place outside the district, making them inaccessible to those unable to afford travel or temporary relocation. Gender dimensions amplify these barriers: women with childcare responsibilities face additional obstacles in accessing training offered in distant urban centers.

4.3 Community participation deficits in decision-making

Procedural justice deficits emerged as a pervasive and cross-cutting concern. Community members consistently reported being excluded from decisions on project planning, CSR benefit distribution, environmental management, and transition-related governance. These patterns were evident in FGDs, corroborated by KIIs, and openly debated in town hall settings. CSR project selection proved particularly contentious. Community members questioned the criteria companies used to determine infrastructure investments and perceived the decisions as reflecting corporate public relations priorities rather than genuine community needs. A community leader in Atuabo articulated this concern directly:

“Ghana Gas builds schools and water systems as CSR, but they decide what to build without asking communities what we actually need. For example, they constructed a six-unit classroom block in Aiyinasi even though we had specifically requested a health post, because medical emergencies require traveling 18 km to Esiama. They said education is a priority, but ignored our priority. This makes us question whose benefit CSR serves—communities or company public relations?”

This account reflects a well-documented pattern in African extractive industry CSR research: company-determined projects systematically misalign with community priorities, and the resulting misallocation erodes rather than builds trust (Idemudia, 2014; Hilson, 2012). The CSR arrangement described, in which decisions are made unilaterally, and communities are informed of outcomes rather than consulted on preferences, exemplifies what Cooke and Kothari (2001) characterize as a rhetorical commitment to participation without substantive power-sharing.

The marginalization of traditional authorities in governance processes represented a distinct failure of recognition. A sub-chief in Sanzule (KII) described the contradiction between his formal custodial role and his operational exclusion from energy governance:

“We are traditional custodians of lands where these companies operate. Customary law grants us authority to speak for communities, yet companies treat us as ceremonial figures invited for ribbon-cutting but excluded from substantive discussions. When we raise concerns about environmental impacts or employment, we are told these are technical matters handled by the government and companies. This disrespects our authority and indigenous knowledge about these lands passed through generations.”

In Ghanaian governance contexts, traditional authorities hold legitimate customary roles in land administration, dispute resolution, and community representation (Ubink, 2008). Their strategic marginalization by energy companies represents a failure of recognition with procedural consequences. By bypassing traditional authority structures, companies remove a governance layer that could equitably mediate between community interests and corporate operations. Town hall meetings revealed additional dimensions of participatory exclusion. Participants in Esiama described being unaware of environmental monitoring processes, uninformed about oil spill response plans, and excluded from consultations about planned infrastructure expansions. Participants in Sanzule documented the absence of any formal mechanism through which fishing communities could raise concerns about environmental impacts on fish stocks and coastal livelihoods.

4.4 Environmental justice concerns and energy access paradoxes

Communities hosting energy infrastructure experience environmental burdens that compound the distributional and procedural injustices documented above. Across FGDs, KIIs, and town hall meetings, participants reported health impacts, ecological degradation, and livelihood threats attributed to energy operations, yet were unable to access the energy products generated in their communities. A female FGD participant from Sanzule described health concerns affecting catchment communities:

“Almost every person in the catchment communities is infected with skin rashes or stomach ulcers due to oil and gas company activities in the District. Especially, people from the Bakanta and Sanzule communities experience excessive heat from gas processing.”

Fishing community members described ecological concerns with economic consequences. A male fisher from Sanzule explained: “The ocean here used to be clear, but now seaweed covers areas where we used to fish. Some say wastewater from the gas plant causes this, but the company denies. Either way, our catch has reduced dramatically.” Another participant noted that lights from the gas plant affect fish behavior at night, driving fish away from nearshore areas where artisanal fishers operate.

The environmental NGO representative interviewed in a KII confirmed that communities report these concerns to the Environmental Protection Agency and company community relations offices, but feel they receive insufficient investigation into them. The absence of accessible, independent environmental monitoring leaves communities without the technical capacity to substantiate or refute company denials, thereby failing to recognize that local ecological knowledge is discounted in favor of formal environmental assessment protocols that communities cannot access.

The energy access paradox emerged as the most analytically striking finding across data collection methods, drawing unprompted comment from participants across all community locations. A female FGD participant from Esiama encapsulated the contradiction:

“Ghana Gas processes gas here in Atuabo that goes to the whole country. However, we in Ellembelle cannot afford LPG. A 14.5 kg cylinder costs GH 180 (approximately US$15), more than many families earn in a week. So we continue using firewood and charcoal despite health problems from smoke inhalation and the time spent collecting fuelwood. We host the gas but cannot use it—does this make sense?”

The District Budget Officer confirmed in a KII that LPG pricing is determined nationally. That district assemblies have no authority to provide subsidies or negotiate preferential pricing for Ellembelle residents, despite the unique circumstances of hosting gas-processing infrastructure. This policy inflexibility represents a structural distributional injustice: communities bearing infrastructure burdens receive no compensatory benefit in energy access, directly contradicting the principles of energy justice that the National Energy Transition Framework nominally endorses.

4.5 Structural patterns across justice dimensions

Taken together, the findings reveal a coherent structural pattern rather than isolated policy failures. Distributional injustice in employment is enabled by procedural exclusion from recruitment governance; procedural exclusion from CSR decisions produces distributional misallocation of infrastructure benefits; recognition failures toward traditional authorities remove governance intermediaries that could hold companies accountable; and the absence of accessible environmental monitoring silences community ecological knowledge. These dimensions are mutually reinforcing: each contributes to a governance architecture that systematically extracts value from the Ellembelle District while directing benefits elsewhere. This pattern is not reducible to individual company misconduct or specific policy gaps. It reflects a structural configuration in which the monitoring authority is centralized in Accra, enforcement capacity is disconnected from implementation sites, community institutions are bypassed rather than engaged, and national policy objectives fail to reach local reality. The question this pattern raises for theory and practice is examined in the following section.

5 Discussion

5.1 Distributional injustice and the spatial politics of transition

The findings reveal substantial distributional injustice in the allocation of employment opportunities and economic benefits. Residents face systematic exclusion from skilled positions despite hosting major infrastructure and bearing the environmental and social costs of operations. This exemplifies the energy injustice pattern that Sovacool and Dworkin (2015) identify, in which benefits accrue externally while communities bear burdens. The Ellembelle case, however, adds a spatial dimension that theory must account for: the 250-km distance between the Accra recruitment nexus and the district that hosts the infrastructure is not incidental but structural. It embeds economic marginalization in the sector's administrative architecture.

This parallels Nigeria's Niger Delta, where oil company recruitment in Lagos and Port Harcourt excludes rural communities hosting offshore platforms (Idemudia, 2014; Okafor and Ene, 2018). It also reflects South African mining, where post-apartheid equity reforms mandated employment equity, yet substantial occupational segregation persists, with racialised hierarchies reproduced through skills gap justifications (Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu, 2011). In Mozambique's Tete coal mining region, Power et al. (2016) document similar dynamics: nationals occupy unskilled roles while technical positions are filled by expatriates, despite local content frameworks that nominally address this pattern. Ellembelle contributes a West African petroleum case to this comparative landscape, demonstrating that the structural reproduction of extractive labor hierarchies is not country-specific but reflects a wider political economy of African resource development.

Despite legal requirements under LI 2204 (2013), the implementation of local content remains inadequate. Ablo (2015) identifies barriers, including limited enforcement capacity, insufficient penalties, definitional ambiguities, and elite capture of contract opportunities. This study's findings demonstrate that district assemblies lack enforcement authority, creating a fundamental accountability gap at the sub-national level. Comparative evidence from Nigeria suggests that local content policies across African petro-states frequently fail without robust monitoring, meaningful sanctions, and civil society accountability mechanisms (Ovadia, 2016). Angola's local content quotas generated a nationalist business class but limited benefits for ordinary citizens due to elite capture (Soares de Oliveira, 2015). Kazakhstan's petroleum local content framework achieved only modest improvement after the introduction of subnational monitoring and public reporting requirements. These comparisons suggest a clear institutional lesson: effective local content in Ghana's Ellembelle context requires devolution of monitoring authority to the district level, supported by resources and technical capacity.

5.2 Procedural justice deficits and governance architecture

The findings demonstrate substantial procedural justice deficits that cannot be attributed solely to company conduct. They reflect a governance architecture in which community institutions, including district assemblies and traditional authorities, are systematically excluded from energy sector decision-making. The Petroleum Commission's centralization of regulatory authority mirrors, at the governance level, the spatial concentration of recruitment and training opportunities documented in the empirical findings. CSR opacity generates suspicion and undermines legitimacy. Idemudia's (2014) research in Nigeria's Niger Delta documents how opaque project selection processes fuel community conflict, even where CSR investments are objectively substantial. Hilson (2012) finds similar patterns in Ghanaian gold mining, where company-determined CSR investments misalign with community priorities and reproduce rather than address exclusion. These parallels across sectors and countries suggest that the CSR governance failure in Ellembelle is not an isolated organizational problem but rather reflects a structural feature of extractive-industry community relations in African contexts. Genuine participatory CSR, as Reed (2008) argues, requires facilitated community needs assessments, transparent criteria, community representation in selection decisions, and effective grievance mechanisms. The Ellembelle evidence demonstrates that the district's current CSR approach lacks most of these elements.

The marginalization of traditional authorities constitutes a failure of recognition with governance consequences. In Ghanaian contexts, traditional authorities exercise legitimate customary authority over land, dispute resolution, and community representation (Ubink, 2008). Bypassing these structures does not neutralize their authority, but it removes their potential to mediate between community interests and corporate operations. The literature on African extractive industries shows that meaningfully engaged traditional authorities can effectively hold companies accountable and ensure that community perspectives are represented in development decisions (Idemudia, 2017; van Alstine and Afionis, 2013). The Ellembelle evidence, in which sub-chiefs describe being treated as ceremonial figures, suggests that the potential governance contribution of traditional institutions is being systematically wasted.

5.3 Skills development and recognition justice

The skills gap, while empirically real, operates in a politically loaded way. Companies invoke skills gaps to justify external recruitment, yet Ablo's (2015) research demonstrates that such claims are often exaggerated. Zambian mining offers an instructive parallel: companies claimed insufficient local technical capacity, but audits revealed that many expatriate positions could be filled with modest additional training investment (Fraser and Lungu, 2007). The distinction matters because “skills gap” framing locates responsibility for exclusion with community members rather than with institutions that control training investment and recruitment. Just transitions require reframing skills development as a shared institutional responsibility involving companies, government, educational institutions, and civil society (International Labour Organisation, 2015). Kenya's experience with youth polytechnics is instructive: Oketch (2007) documents that facilities are concentrated in major towns, while rural youth face prohibitive geographic and financial barriers, producing exclusion patterns comparable to those observed in Ellembelle despite different energy sector contexts. South Africa's further education colleges disproportionately serve urban areas, creating structural barriers for rural and peri-urban youth (Powell and McGrath, 2019). The Ellembelle case, where the nearest technical training institution is 70–90 km away, confirms a pattern across African contexts in which training geography functions as a de facto selection mechanism, screening out marginalized populations. Gender dimensions amplify these barriers. Women with childcare responsibilities cannot easily relocate for training; technical training systems typically privilege young, unmarried males (Palmer, 2009). Just transition interventions must integrate gender-sensitive design, including localized training provision, flexible scheduling, childcare, and deliberate outreach to address cultural barriers to women's participation in technical education.

5.4 Environmental paradoxes and temporal justice

The environmental justice findings situate Ellembelle within a well-documented African pattern of extractive sacrifice zones. The Niger Delta's environmental degradation (Idemudia, 2014) and South African coal communities' pollution burden (McDonald, 2009) represent the severe end of a spectrum on which Ellembelle occupies a middle position: communities experiencing environmental health concerns and livelihood disruption that are not catastrophic in scale but are persistent, inadequately monitored, and insufficiently acknowledged by regulatory authorities. The energy access paradox, in which communities host gas processing facilities yet cannot afford LPG, directly contradicts the distributional justice principle that infrastructure-hosting communities should receive priority access to benefits. This paradox is not unique to Ellembelle: Sokona et al. (2012) document analogous patterns across sub-Saharan African energy producers, and Aliyu et al. (2013) demonstrate how Nigeria's petroleum wealth coexists with widespread energy poverty. What distinguishes the Ellembelle case is the localization of the paradox to a single district, where infrastructure and energy poverty are geographically coterminous, making the distributional injustice visible and immediate. Policy responses must address the mismatch between national pricing structures and community-level realities. Subsidized LPG distribution for communities within a defined radius of gas processing facilities, community-scale renewable energy projects funded with a portion of royalty revenues, and revenue-sharing mechanisms that dedicate a fixed percentage of petroleum royalties to district energy access programs represent actionable interventions consistent with energy justice principles (Tordo et al., 2013).

5.5 Ellembelle as a case study: analytical value and generalizability

A single district study cannot represent Ghana, let alone the continent, and this limitation must be explicitly acknowledged. However, the value of the Ellembelle case does not rest on representativeness in a statistical sense. It rests on theoretical productivity: Ellembelle is a case where the tensions of the just energy transition are crystallized most acutely, precisely because it sits at the intersection of major fossil fuel infrastructure, national transition aspirations, and deep community-level marginalization, the very heart of these transition tensions. The analytical value of studying such a case lies in revealing mechanisms rather than frequencies. The mechanisms documented in Ellembelle, including spatial exclusion from recruitment, enforcement authority disconnected from implementation sites, CSR governance without community participation, and energy access paradoxes in infrastructure-hosting communities, are not unique to Ellembelle. They appear, in varying configurations, in the Niger Delta (Idemudia, 2014), Mozambique (Power et al., 2016), Kenya (Gore et al., 2025), and South Africa (Baker et al., 2014). This theoretical resonance across diverse African contexts suggests that the mechanisms identified in Ellembelle reflect structural features of extractive industry governance in sub-Saharan Africa rather than idiosyncratic local failures. For Ghana specifically, Ellembelle provides an early warning of the justice deficits that could characterize the renewable energy transition if governance reforms are not pursued proactively. The district is currently structured around fossil fuel operations projected to peak in 2029. The governance failures documented here, if unaddressed, will likely recur in the renewable sector, as Baker et al. (2014) demonstrate for South Africa and as Newell et al. (2021) theorize for developing-country transitions more broadly. Ghana's National Energy Transition Framework articulates a vision for just outcomes; the Ellembelle case reveals a governance gap between that vision and the current implementation.

5.6 Implications for ghana's energy transition

Current deficits in employment access, skills development, and community participation in the fossil sector risk reproduction in the renewable energy sector, absent deliberate corrective interventions. Distributed renewable technologies enable more decentralized ownership compared to large-scale fossil extraction (Mulvaney, 2013). However, utility-scale renewable projects increasingly adopt corporate structures that can reproduce familiar patterns (Baker et al., 2014). Community-owned cooperatives and benefit-sharing arrangements prove more equitable than purely corporate-owned developments (Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008). Ghana's positioning of natural gas as a transition fuel raises important questions of temporal justice for Ellembelle specifically. How long will gas operations continue? What transition support will communities receive when global decarbonization accelerates and production declines? International experience with coal phase-outs demonstrates the importance of long lead times, comprehensive worker support, and genuine community participation in transition planning (Strambo et al., 2019). Ghana should initiate transition planning for Ellembelle now, while fossil fuel revenues are still flowing, rather than waiting for operational decline to create urgency. International climate finance obligations are also relevant. Developed countries bear historical responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions driving decarbonization pressure (Okereke and Coventry, 2016). Climate finance mechanisms must prioritize not only renewable energy deployment but also social protection for affected workers, skills development programmes, and institutional capacity-building in communities like Ellembelle that bear transition costs without having caused the climate crisis.

6 Conclusion and recommendations

6.1 Summary of key findings

This study examined how communities in the Ellembelle District experience Ghana's commitment to a just energy transition through qualitative research with 127 participants across four methods. The overarching finding is a coherent structural pattern of energy injustice: communities hosting major national energy infrastructure experience systematic exclusion from economic benefits, procedural governance processes, and energy access, while bearing disproportionate environmental and social costs. Distributional injustice is manifest in centralized recruitment that excludes residents from skilled employment, inadequate enforcement of local content regulations, and LPG pricing that makes processed fuels unaffordable in the communities that produce them. Procedural deficits include opaque and unilateral CSR project selection, exclusion of traditional authorities from governance processes, and the absence of accessible grievance mechanisms for environmental and livelihood concerns. Recognition failures encompass the dismissal of local ecological knowledge, the marginalization of customary governance institutions, and the invisibility of gender-differentiated impacts of transition in policy design. The governance architecture that enables these failures is centralized and spatially disconnected from the communities it is meant to serve. These findings contribute to energy justice theory by demonstrating, through community-level qualitative evidence, how the three justice dimensions are mutually reinforcing rather than independently remediable. They contribute to African energy transition scholarship by providing a detailed community-level account from a West African petroleum context, extending the comparative landscape beyond South Africa's coal transition. They contribute to Ghana-specific policy knowledge by revealing the implementation gap between the National Energy Transition Framework's ambitions and the lived realities of Ellembelle communities.

6.2 Policy recommendations

The following recommendations are directed at national and district-level policymakers and energy sector stakeholders in Ghana, including the Ministry of Energy, the Petroleum Commission, the Ellembelle District Assembly, and energy companies operating within the district, with clear potential for uptake within Ghana's ongoing energy transition implementation.

• Strengthen local content enforcement with devolved authority. The Petroleum Commission should be required to share compliance monitoring authority with district assemblies in host communities. Annual local content plans should be publicly disclosed at the district level. Companies should be required to advertise and conduct interviews for all non-specialist positions within the district. Specific local employment targets should carry graduated timelines with meaningful penalties for non-compliance.
• Establish localized skills training infrastructure. The government should establish a technical training facility within Ellembelle focused on renewable technologies, energy efficiency, and vocational skills relevant to the energy sector's evolution. Training programs should be designed with company input to ensure relevance to employment pathways. Scholarships and accommodation support should be provided for trainees from low-income households. Gender-sensitive design should include flexible scheduling and childcare provision.
• Institute genuine participatory governance mechanisms. Energy companies and government agencies should establish formal consultative structures that bring together traditional leaders, youth representatives, women's groups, and civil society with company and government officials to make binding decisions on CSR project selection and community development priorities. Town hall meetings should be institutionalized as quarterly forums with formal records and obligations for the company to respond. Grievance mechanisms should be accessible, independent, and time-bound.
• Develop community benefit programs for energy-hosting communities. The national government should develop a policy to ensure that communities hosting energy infrastructure receive compensatory benefits in energy access. A subsidized LPG distribution program for communities within a defined radius of processing facilities should be implemented. A portion of petroleum royalties should be allocated to a district energy access fund that supports community-scale renewable projects.
• Initiate long-term transition planning for Ellembelle. With peak oil production projected for 2029, transition planning for Ellembelle should begin now. This should include economic diversification support, including investment in sustainable agriculture value chains, artisanal fisheries, tourism, and renewable energy entrepreneurship. The District Business Advisory Center should be resourced to help local enterprises access finance and markets.
• Establish district-level transition monitoring. The national government should require energy companies to report annually at the district level on employment, community investment, and environmental compliance, with public disclosure. District assemblies should be resourced and empowered to participate in monitoring and to submit independent assessments to the Petroleum Commission.

6.3 Directions for future research

Longitudinal studies tracking employment trends, community wellbeing, and governance dynamics over the period leading to and following peak oil production would illuminate transition dynamics in real time. Comparative research across multiple Ghanaian districts with different energy profiles, including renewable energy development sites, would test whether the mechanisms identified in Ellembelle are sector-specific or structural. Gender-disaggregated analysis of transition impacts, examining how men and women experience employment exclusion, training barriers, and environmental health concerns differently, represents an important analytical gap. Quantitative assessment of economic impacts, including changes in household income and employment composition, would complement the qualitative findings presented here. Environmental health research that investigates community-reported health impacts using epidemiological methods is urgently needed, given the health concerns documented across multiple data sources.

6.4 Concluding remarks

The just energy transition in Ghana represents both an imperative for climate action and an opportunity to address historical inequities in energy systems. However, achieving justice in practice requires deliberate attention to distributional, procedural, and recognition dimensions at the community level, not only in national policy frameworks. The Ellembelle case demonstrates that without such attention, transitions risk reproducing patterns where some groups bear costs while others capture benefits. Ghana's National Energy Transition Framework articulates an ambitious vision. Translating that vision into equitable outcomes requires institutional reforms: devolved monitoring authority, community-grounded participatory governance, localized skills infrastructure, and compensatory energy access programs for communities hosting infrastructure. These reforms are not technically complex. They require political will and institutional reorientation toward the communities that physically host the energy systems on which Ghana's transition depends. Communities like Ellembelle should not merely be passive recipients of the impacts of transition. Their knowledge of local environments, social dynamics, and livelihood strategies, their priorities regarding desirable development, and their agency in making decisions about their futures must inform how energy systems evolve. Recognizing this is not only a matter of justice. It is a condition for achieving transitions that are durable, legitimate, and genuinely transformative.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Fengtao Guang, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, China

Reviewed by: Christopher D. Gore, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada

Maikel Pons-Giralt, Federal University of Sergipe, Brazil