The emergence of carbon pricing on the political agenda in Côte d’Ivoire

Following the Paris Climate Accords of 2015, Côte d’Ivoire announced that it wanted to implement a carbon tax. Currently, the country is carrying out final studies to examine the potential of the tax and which sectors to include. However, scholars, as well as carbon pricing experts, have doubts about the fit of carbon taxation in the developmental context of Côte d’Ivoire as these policies mostly have been adopted in developed countries in the global north. Therefore, this paper analyses the agenda-setting phase to uncover how and why the idea of a carbon tax emerged and was put on the political agenda in Côte d’Ivoire. The analysis looks at domestic, regional, and international factors, as well as their interactions. While this research aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the agenda-setting process, the study puts specific emphasis on the role of capacity development. In developing countries, international actors often play an important role in policy-making through capacity development and financial support. When they are involved in capacity development projects, they can influence the direction and pace of policy change in the partner country through these projects. Therefore, taking these projects into account is necessary to fully explain the agenda-setting process. Based on policy diffusion theory, this paper aims to uncover whether learning is the mechanism at play, knowing that, traditionally, capacity development falls under learning. This research builds a theoretical framework based on interviews with Ivorian civil society, policymakers, regional and international organizations based in Abidjan, but is also inspired by policy diffusion and agenda-setting theory in order to explain the agenda-setting process of carbon pricing in Côte d’Ivoire. In a following study, the framework will be tested on Senegal, another country that is examining the adoption of a carbon tax. The study contributes to the literature on policy diffusion (learning), environmental governance, and capacity development in the West African country of Côte d’Ivoire. To my knowledge, this is a very understudied topic and therefore requires scholars’ attention in order to learn how environmental policy change unfolds in West African countries.