1. INTRODUCTION

The use of biofuel as a means of mitigating the global challenges of climate change, energy insecurity (evidenced in high fuel prices and imports) and as an opportunity to stimulate rural development has raised a lot of sustainability debates in recent times (Mol, 2007). Though biofuels are said to be environmentally friendly because it is renewable and emit fewer greenhouse gas (GHG), a wide range of potential risks are also associated with it (Fairhead et al, 2012). Renewable energy targets are set up by the European Union (EU), United States of America (USA) and China to meet up with the above challenges. In EU for example, the Renewable Energy Directive (EU-RED) (2009/28/EC) has set mandatory targets for renewable energy use at 20% and 10% in the overall energy use and transport energy respectively by 2020. (Van Dam et al, 2010, Schlamann et al, 2013, German and Schoneveld, 2011, Di Lucia, 2010, Amigun et al 2010).

Biofuel will contribute a substantial share in the transport sector (German and Schoneveld, 2011). The UN energy of 2007 in Jumbe et al, (2009) states that biofuel will account for 25% in the overall world’s energy needs in the next 15-20years. Due to these renewable energy mandatory targets, and the significant role biofuel is expected to play, anticipations are that, EU’s demand for biofuel/ feedstock will increase to an estimated 38.3billion litters by 2020. The inevitable outcome is high levels of dependency on imported biofuels as non EU sources are expected to provide 41.5% of this demand. German and Schoeveld quotes from (Bowyer, 2010) that the EU is projected to become one of the largest importers of biofuel/feedstock by 2020 with an anticipated annual import of 15.9billion litters unlike 10.8billion litters for the United States (German & Schoeveld 2011). Clearly, the EU’s demand demand for biofuel is on the increase and a substantial part will be met through imports. Biodiesel is a popular biofuel in the EU, and some of the most favorable feedstock for biodiesel (palm oil, jatropha) are from the tropics.

The EU does not have a conducive climate to grow these tropical feed stocks and the available arable land in the EU is insufficient to grow the raw materials or feedstock needed to produce biofuels in the medium and long term. This means much of this EU’s high demand for biofuel will be met by expanding and importing large volumes of biofuel/feedstock from Africa including countries like Cameroon (Van Gelder & German, 2011, Duvenage et al, 2012). This demand is considered one of the drivers of the scramble for arable land (land grabbing) in Africa and associated with further sustainability concerns like biodiversity loss, land use changes, food-fuel nexus and social imbalances (Fairhead et al, 2012). To ameliorate such controversies, EU-RED has placed sustainability standards on biofuel to ensure that the capacity to increase production is without unacceptable negative impacts on society and the environment. This is done with the use of EU-RED approved voluntary certification schemes as a tool to make sure that the biofuel/feedstock of economic operators meets these sustainability requirements through certification. This increase in demand and dependency on the importation of biofuel/feedstock from Africa urgently needs to be investigated in a case country; and so Cameroon is selected as an empirical case to represent Africa. Research on biofuel development in Cameroon is virtually none existing (Calcaterra & Ndongsok, 2013) although bioenergy at large is a substantial contribution to the energy mix. A major research gap exists on: Whether biofuel developments in Cameroon is driven or influenced by the increasing demand and biofuel consumption needs of other countries (China, USA and EU). Whether there are factors within Cameroon that could possibly drive the biofuel sector of the country; and the actors behind the drive. Whether the sustainability criteria on biofuel put in place by supranational bodies like EU-RED are known and used in Cameroon and how these policies influence the biofuel arena in the country Therefore, this study finds it urgently important to do a case study supported by field research in order to investigate on the biofuel drivers in Cameroon, so as to retrieve firsthand information on the prevailing situation of this sector. By so doing, our understanding will be enhanced on the biofuel developments in Cameroon and knowledge will be contributed to the ongoing process of laying down a legal regulatory framework for liquid biofuel by the Cameroon government.

ve case study was through semi-structured, interviews with government administrative officials of the Cameroon’s Ministry of Energy and Water (MINEE) and some biofuel/feedstock economic operators in Cameroon. This was supplemented with a review of relevant literature. The data is analyzed through the lens of political ecology that mirrors out the diverse perspectives. Furthermore, given that, this study will also discuss if and how the EU-RED and associated sustainability policies in practice influences biofuel production and development in Cameroon, knowledge will be added to the debates on the sustainability of biofuel and the results of this case-based research will provide empirical knowledge and pragmatic evidence to the broader implications of the EU-RED in none member countries.
1.1 Research Aims/Research Questions.


The goal of this study is to explore the biofuel developments that are taking place in Cameroon in order to examine the driving force behind such developments. Another aim is to investigate how sustainability criteria put in place by supranational bodies like EU-RED affects the global South using Cameroon as a case country. That is, whether such policies are even known in Cameron and their possible influence on the production and use of liquid biofuels in Cameroon. These overall aims are formulated in three research questions below: Research Questions

• What is driving liquid biofuel developments in Cameroon today?

• What liquid biofuel developments have taken place in Cameroon and by which actors?

• Does the EU-RED and associated sustainability criteria