Stakeholder Collaboration in Climate-Smart Agricultural Production Innovations: Insights from the Cocoa Industry in Ghana

Although collaboration is vital in addressing global environmental sustainability challenges, research understanding on stakeholder engagement in climate-smart production innovation adoption and implementation, remains limited. In this paper, we advance knowledge about stakeholder collaboration by examining the roles played by stakeholders in scaling-up ecological sustainability innovations. Using the illustrative context and case of green cocoa industry in Ghana, the analysis identified three distinctive phases of stakeholder engagement in ecological sustainability innovations implemented from 1960 to 2017. We highlight defining periods of ecological challenges encompassing the production recovery sustainability initiative phase solely driven by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD)—a governmental body responsible for production, processing and marketing of cocoa, coffee and sheanut. During the period, major initiatives were driven by non-governmental organisations in collaboration with COCOBOD to implement the climate-smart agriculture scheme in the cocoa sector. The findings have implications for cocoa production research and stakeholder collaboration in environmental innovations adoption.