Transformative innovation policy approach to sustainable e-waste management in Ghana: actors and their perspectives on transformative changes

Ghana, as in many African countries, is faced with the challenge of sustainably managing electronic waste (e-waste). The country has a legal framework and is in the process of developing a public policy for e-waste management. Despite the framework, e-waste management remains a major challenge due to factors that include weaknesses in Ghana’s innovation and policymaking process. We argue that the current approach to innovation policymaking in Ghana, would be inadequate in delivering the goal of sustainable e-waste management. Using the transformative innovation learning histories methodology of the transformative innovation policy (TIP) approach, we examine Ghana’s evolving sociotechnical systems for e-waste, the multiple perspectives of actors, and their expectations of transformative change. We show that these perspectives and expectations are critical for an e-waste TIP in Ghana. We conclude that the policy processes adopted in developing Ghana’s e-waste management policy, should be guided by the TIP approach to policymaking.