Community Perceptions on Why Biofuels Failed and the Willingness to Accept Future Investments

The ambitious global targets to mitigate climate change through clean energy led to the proliferation of biofuel land-based investment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the majority of these projects have failed, collapsed, been abandoned, or closed due to several reasons that are not comprehensively understood. A comprehensive synthesis of the literature in SSA on the reasons for these failures is limited, as are lessons learned and local communities’ perceptions of these failed projects and perceptions of future acceptability. This research aims to synthesize the literature about why land-based biofuel investments failed in SSA. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), 25 articles were included for the review. The assumption was that land grabbing caused the failure, but thematic content analysis and clustering indicated otherwise: No single problem can be identified as the main cause of land-based biofuels’ failure; rather, multiple interconnected circumstances—local and international—led these investments to fail. Nonetheless, economics seem dominant at the different scales assessed. The findings imply that, for a better understanding of causes of failure, future studies must shift from a narrow discourse about land grabbing to a broader perspective that assesses sustainability pillars at different scales. From a policy perspective, if future land-based investments are to succeed, economic imperatives and project-level dynamics must be given attention.