Does Context Influence the Success or Failure of Social License to Operate (SLO) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)?

TY - CHAP

T1 - Does Context Influence the Success or Failure of Social License to Operate (SLO) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)?

AU - Duot, John Deng

AU - Onyango, Vincent

AU - Ologhadien, Nelson Goodnews

AU - Kitony, Sharon

AU - Wachira, Jane

AU - Njoroge, Ann

AU - Forghaniallahabadi, Maryam

N1 - © 2025 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

PY - 2026/3/5

Y1 - 2026/3/5

N2 - Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is not monolithic, presenting a challenge for those who want to treat it as a homogenous place for which one approach to Social License to Operate (SLO) suffices. It has various contextual characteristics associated with its different regions, e.g., western, central, southern, and eastern, or calm versus civil unrest. In this chapter, we argue that while SSA is a unique geopolitical entity, it has sufficiently different contextual dimensions that need to be considered when formulating and implementing SLO. We prosecute this argument via a comparative case study analysis approach using projects from Kenya and South Sudan, which are distinctly different countries in their age, regulatory, political stability, institutional, socio-economic, governance, and civil aspects. The findings provide compelling evidence to avoid a one-size-fits-all SLO approach in SSA. Instead, it is recommended to pay careful attention to the contextual (factors) realities in SSA, to be more successful with projects. The insight can guide SSA government policymakers, investors and project operators in the extractive industries and local communities in better instrumentalizing local contextual factors when formulating SLO approaches. This will help them better understand how to deploy and calibrate their expectations around SLO instead of simply relying on off-the-shelf templates that have worked elsewhere in SSA.

AB - Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is not monolithic, presenting a challenge for those who want to treat it as a homogenous place for which one approach to Social License to Operate (SLO) suffices. It has various contextual characteristics associated with its different regions, e.g., western, central, southern, and eastern, or calm versus civil unrest. In this chapter, we argue that while SSA is a unique geopolitical entity, it has sufficiently different contextual dimensions that need to be considered when formulating and implementing SLO. We prosecute this argument via a comparative case study analysis approach using projects from Kenya and South Sudan, which are distinctly different countries in their age, regulatory, political stability, institutional, socio-economic, governance, and civil aspects. The findings provide compelling evidence to avoid a one-size-fits-all SLO approach in SSA. Instead, it is recommended to pay careful attention to the contextual (factors) realities in SSA, to be more successful with projects. The insight can guide SSA government policymakers, investors and project operators in the extractive industries and local communities in better instrumentalizing local contextual factors when formulating SLO approaches. This will help them better understand how to deploy and calibrate their expectations around SLO instead of simply relying on off-the-shelf templates that have worked elsewhere in SSA.

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-74725-1_45-1

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-74725-1_45-1

M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)

SN - 9783030747251

T3 - Palgrave Studies in Energy Transitions

SP - 1

EP - 33

BT - The Palgrave Handbook of Social License to Operate and Energy Transitions

A2 - Górski, Jędrzej

A2 - Mete, Gokce

PB - Palgrave

ER -