Entanglements in urban governance in new African cities: Appolonia City in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana

ABSTRACT Large scale urban development projects, marketed as “new cities,” are emerging across the African continent. However, there is a limited empirical insight into how their partnerships, involving foreign investors and the local African landowners, are brokered, and the extent to which local communities are engaged in such projects. Using the Appolonia City project in Ghana and drawing analytical insights from the DEDA urban governance framework, this paper scrutinizes the partnership between Rendeavour, the foreign investor, and the Appolonia community, the owners of the land used for the project, to interrogate the extent to which the community has been involved, and the benefits that have accrued. We find that the traditional rulers saw the project as an opportunity to secure community lands against ongoing unauthorized encroachments, and to assist the local economy. We argue that the 99-year lease granted to Rendeavour in return for a 10% equity stake does not reflect a partnership where concessions and benefits are equally distributed. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the unequal partnership arrangements and the ensuing entangled urban governance process that set in motion project outcomes that do not necessarily reflect the needs of urban citizens.


Introduction
New cities built from scratch are rapidly emerging across the Global South (Moser, 2020). In Africa, 34 new cities have been recorded at different stages of completion, and there is an expectation that more would be emerging (c.f. Van Noorloos & Kloosterboer, 2017). 1 In Ghana, the government's neoliberal economic policy orientation heralded the development of socalled "new cities," which in addition to rescuing an ailing economy, were considered a means to attract foreign direct investment (Grant, 2009;Arku, 2009). Framed within a discourse of a "globalizing city" (Grant, 2009) and a modernization agenda (Arku, 2009), the liberalization of Ghana's economy first heralded the growth of gated communities in the early 1990s. By 2005, over US$434 million worth of foreign direct investment in gated communities was recorded, which entailed the development of villas, townhouses and detached units mostly in Accra (Asiedu & Arku, 2009;Grant, 2009). These developments were accompanied by international retail chains and other amenities, as a way for the Ghanaian government to attract more foreign expatriates and respond to the demands of its growing middle-class population (Eduful & Eduful, 2021).
New cities (from 2010 onwards) in Ghana represent a new phase of cities in globalization marked in part by aggressive place branding and promotion (Grant, 2009). They come in different forms, including, smart city projects such as the Airport City (Arthur, 2018), urban extension projects, notably the Ningo-Prampram urban extension (Grant et al., 2019), and satellite city projects like We argue that understanding how such partnerships are formed for the execution of these major urban development projects in Ghana, and indeed across Africa, and the extent of their community engagements, is important for two main reasons. First, like many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of Ghana's lands are in some form of communal ownership (Chimhowu, 2018). Specifically, 80% of all lands are in customary ownership, and chiefs are mandated by the 1992 Constitution of Ghana (Article 36 clause 6) to exercise fiduciary duties over them for the benefit of all members of the community (Kasanga & Kotey, 2001;Obeng-Odoom, 2014). This implies a strong intergenerational interest in communal lands and it remains unclear how these new cities being developed on communal lands might impact traditional land administration. There is documented evidence, for instance, that when rural and peri-urban areas witness uplifts in land values, some chiefs renege on their fiduciary duties and instead appropriate lands for themselves (Amanor, 2008;Obeng-Odoom, 2014). Thus, it is therefore important to scrutinize the way partnerships have been set up between the chiefs and MNCs, the concessions indigenous people make to attract investors to their impoverished localities and the entangled urban governance arrangements that evolve (Zoomers et al., 2017).
Second, Ghana's Local Government Act, 2016 (Section 40) mandates that local communities be involved in all aspects of local development, especially when developments take place in their local area (c.f. Asante & Helbrecht, 2019). The intention of our study is to scrutinize whether the democratic principles embodied in this decentralized governance system are embedded in the partnership brokered. This then also affects the extent to which project outcomes are aligned to citizen needs.
This study extends earlier work by Fält (2019) which equally studied Appolonia City as a form of "privatized urbanism." Our study, however, differs in two crucial ways. First, whereas Fält's research examined the role of governmentality in the production of a large-scale urban development project, treating the partnership as incidental, this article takes the partnership as the basis for empirical scrutiny, allowing us to interrogate the governance framework enacted and the nature of community engagement undertaken. Second, although Fält (2019) alluded to some of the villagers' raising concerns about limited community engagement in the land transaction process, she relied on semi-structured interviews. By comparison, our study uses survey data from a statistically representative sample of residents in Appolonia village to establish its evidence base.
Our study also complements the chronologically similar study of Appolonia, and other newly developing locations in the Greater Accra Region, by Korah et al. (2021); which uses the joint perspectives of enclavism (with its similarity to gated communities) and Assemblage Thinking (with its emphasis on process, emergence and the bringing together of multiple heterogeneous elements) to look at similar overall questions about the African "new city" phenomenon. Our study differs however in its stronger focus on the complicated governance arrangements that have evolved to date, processes around and within the existing land-owning community, and the resultant impacts on that community.
Section two of this paper reviews the literature on the growth of African "new cities." In section three, we elaborate on the DEDA urban governance framework as the analytical lens for our study. We outline our study context and research methods in section four and then present and analyze the findings in section five. Section six offers the discussion and conclusion.

The emergence of "new cities" across Africa
For Watson (2014), a combination of global and local factors have contributed to the rise of these major new urban areas located near to, but remaining mostly independently of Africa's larger capital cities. Global factors relate to the attractiveness of Africa as the "last development frontier" following the downturn in demand for property and urban development in global North countries, post-2008 financial crises (Watson, 2014). Local factors, including Africa's growing urban population and an increase in middle-class households, have also generated strong market demand and a desire to live outside the central metropolis (Grant, 2015a;Kayizzi-Mugerwa, 2011). For Grant (2015b), Africa's enormous infrastructure deficit, estimated to be some US$93 billion per year and partly reflected in inaccessibility to water, basic sanitation and proper housing, offers a strong impetus for building large scale urban development projects on the outskirts of existing capital cities. Van Noorloos and Kloosterboer (2017) argue that these foreign-investor led developments are mainly speculative and consumption-oriented, often meant to exercise "symbolic global power as world-class cities" (p. 15). Similarly, from a policy mobility standpoint, Côté-Roy and Moser (2019) suggests that these new urban spaces have partly come about because of new representations by governments, policy think tanks and global consultancy firms of the African continent as a site for lucrative business ventures. Others (Carmody & Owusu, 2016;Watson, 2014) suggest that the emergence of these so-called "new cities" forms part of a grand scheme by African elites and politicians to break away from existing capital cities and the general stereotypical view that cast these sprawling metropolis areas as congested and ridden with crime and poverty (c.f. Abubakar & Doan, 2017).
Meanwhile, there are also growing critical commentaries on these large foreign investor-driven urban projects, suggesting that they are at odds with the urban realities of the contexts in which they are developed, and do little to resolve the housing problems of the urban poor. Watson (2014) for example, contends that 'these new urban visions and development plans appear to disregard the fact that at the moment, the bulk of the population in sub-Saharan African cities is extremely poor and living in informal settlements. Grant et al. (2019, p. 338), in reviewing the Ningo-Prampram urban project in the Greater Accra Region, point to tensions between the wealthier newcomers and the existing population, particularly youths whose traditional claims to land and socially coded entitlements have now become erased.
While these commentaries focus on project outcomes, there is still, however, only limited empirical attention on how the partnerships involving MNCs and local Africans are arranged, and the extent to which local communities are engaged in these projects. These projects are often framed as mutually beneficial partnerships between international investors and (sub)national bodies, where the former provides foreign capital and technical expertise in design and construction, and the latter either directly provides land or facilitates the acquisition of land (by outsiders) and necessary development permits (Cain, 2014;Fält, 2019;Grant et al., 2019;Van Noorloos et al., 2019). However, the exact nature of these partnerships, how they are brokered, what benefits accrue to each party and how local people are involved in development and governance, are rarely scrutinized empirically. To date, there has only been speculation that these projects have proceeded without proper community engagement, particularly with low-income groups (Carmody & Owusu, 2016;Van Noorloos et al., 2019). We contend that the way the partnership is set up determines the final project outcomes, with the urban governance framework, in effect, set in motion at this critical early delivery stage. In the next section, we draw on the DEDA urban governance framework to show why these issues are therefore germane and require further scrutiny.

Analytical framework: DEDA urban governance
Urban governance, as defined by Obeng-Odoom (2013, p. 13) "connotes the process of decision making and implementation" and entails an effective partnership between a wide variety of actors (government, private sector, and civil society) to achieve a reasonably egalitarian outcome, meeting the needs of citizens. The concept pays attention to "new processes of governing or changed condition of ordered rule or new methods by which society is governed" (Smit, 2018, p. 58). Viewed this way, urban governance recognizes that power exists both inside and outside of formal authority and institutions, it emphasizes "processes," and recognizes that decisions are made based on complex relationships between many actors with different priorities (Smit, 2018, p. 59).
In Ghana, urban governance has been used to explore a myriad of urban-related topics, whereby government-driven top-down objectives and private sector aims and strategic ambitions collide with local realities. Asante & Helbrecht (2019) use urban governance to demonstrate resistance strategies employed by non-state actors in market regeneration projects in Kumasi. Gillespie (2017) shows how street hawkers organize collectively and leverage the political capital (voting rights) to defy statesanctioned attempts to curb informal trading in Accra's central business district. Paller (2019) examines the everyday urban governance entanglements within three rapidly expanding, yet contrasting, neighborhoods in Accra, namely Ashaiman, Ga Mashie and Old Fadama. He reveals how everyday politics becomes the contested site in which the political elite meet the ordinary people, and formal and informal rules become intertwined. Stacey et al. (2021) equally highlight the uncompromising positioning of various market actors (chief, traders, market patrons, etc.) and formal authorities (AMA officials and politicians from the Northern regions) in the repeated failed attempts by the state to relocate the Konkomba Yam market in Accra. They conclude that the urban governance of the yam market exemplifies a "convergence and divergence between formal and informal institutions, where both formal and informal actors gain, lose and contribute to the intransigence" (p. 102400).
While existing literature on large-scale urban development projects suggests they are invariably grounded in a neoliberal conception of urbanism based around the dominance of market imperatives in the production, allocation and consumption of urban resources (Fält, 2019;Van Noorloos & Kloosterboer, 2017), a myriad of private and public interests are often at play. Complex governance arrangements have evolved within institutional and political economy logics. The entanglements that lie beneath these arrangements are intricate, warranting broader conceptualization not captured in general understandings of formal urban municipal governance (Fuseini, 2016;Obeng-Odoom, 2017).
This study thus draws on the framework of urban governance first developed by Franklin Obeng-Odoom (2012) in the African context as DED (entailing the principles of decentralization, entrepreneurialism and democratization) and later extended to become DEDA (to include the principle of activism) by Asante and Helbrecht (2019). The framework lends itself to an analysis of complex partnerships by accounting for the role of historical, institutional, and political variables, as well as changing relationships between the state, capital, land, labor, and civil society (Asante & Helbrecht, 2019;Obeng-Odoom, 2017).
Decentralization, according to Obeng-Odoom (2017); Obeng-Odoom (2013), is the first leg of the framework. The term goes beyond administrative de-concentration of functions and delegation of responsibilities to also include devolution and comprising the assignment of deeper forms of responsibilities, autonomy and powers over urban decision making from national to local government institutions. Moreover, "decentralisation as urban governance emphasizes partnership among different sectors of society, instituting collaboration instead of top-down models by agents of local government" (Obeng-Odoom, 2017, p. 207). This view of decentralization seems appropriate for contexts like Ghana where historical antecedents like colonialism have resulted in a bifurcated land tenure system (Kasanga & Kotey, 2001;R.J. Ehwi & Asante, 2016) and a contested land use planning system where state and customary institutions ostensibly jostle for authority and final decision-making powers over land administration and local economic development (Mahama, 2009;Yeboah & Obeng-Odoom, 2010).
Entrepreneurialism relates to "marketing the city to marketize itself" (Obeng-Odoom, 2017, p. 7). "Marketing the city" is about branding the city in ways that will be attractive to private investors and businesses. "Marketizing the city" involves solving urban problems and driving local economic development through firms, businesses and private capital investment. Entrepreneurialism, according to Obeng-Odoom (2017) is characterized by three features: (i) an emphasis on urban economic growth, (ii) partnership between governments and businesses, and (iii) a conscious attempt to attract the creative classes. In terms of city management, this ethos is continued by way of the appointment of CEOs with acumen in lobbying, networking and negotiation with politicians and businesses (Asante & Helbrecht, 2019), and in the enactment of new procurement and contract protocols that emphasize efficiency and value for money in the use of limited public resources (Obeng-Odoom, 2013;Pierre, 1999). Here, entrepreneurialism is ostensibly about bringing business logic into urban governance. However, Obeng-Odoom (2017) also cautions that not all entrepreneurialism is neoliberal and results in the accumulation of profit, and that some are purely for social engineering outcomes as illustrated in the case of strengthening local authorities to explore new ways of funding for local urban infrastructure and services in Tamale, Ghana (Fuseini, 2016).
Democratization finds expression in different forms at different places. However, from a normative standpoint, it is widely seen as a process of decision and implementation that embraces the opinions, knowledge, and skills of different actors in the planning and implementation of local development interventions (Obeng-Odoom, 2017). Asante and Helbrecht (2019) add that democratization also embodies dialogue, citizen participation in planning and decision, transparency, accountability and legitimacy in urban development projects (Asante & Helbrecht, 2019). In Ghana, for instance, district assemblies as local development authorities are mandated to allow residents and other stakeholders to participate effectively in local development decision-making (Section 40 of the Local Government Act, 2016). However, recent empirical evidence suggests that these assemblies often privilege elite residents and scarcely involve residents in local development decisions (Cobbinah, 2017). Moreover, given the tendency for district assemblies to play a more limited role in private sector-led development projects, the ability to bring democratic principles to bear becomes more problematic.
Activism is the last leg of the framework. It was incorporated by Asante and Helbrecht (2019), who argue that urban governance in large African cities is changing, as non-state actors, such as traders and market women, employ a variety of channels such as protests, demonstrations, press conferences, petitions, boycotts, and social media posts to press home their demands from city management. However, Mitlin (2018) also makes a further important point: that sometimes deceptive strategies such as subterfuge are used as a form of activism to influence urban governance. The extent to which subterfuge can occur even at the outset of an urban development project is therefore part of the explorations in this paper.
According to Obeng-Odoom (2017), none of the DEDA components is sufficient on their own to adequately illuminate urban governance. Also, the prominence of each component is likely to vary across different empirical contexts. As such, Obeng-Odoom (2012) suggests that the application of the framework should follow a three-step approach. First, the analysis must sketch the nature of urban governance in practice, to avoid a too broad-brush analysis devoid of historical, peculiar and context-specific issues. Second, the examination should include the ends or effects of urban governance, such as the provision of urban services, jobs, and overall quality of urban life. Third, the analysis should include the nature of citizen engagement, including whether voting is used as a problem-solving mechanism. We draw on this three-step approach as far as possible to analyze the partnership formed around the Appolonia City project, the nature of community involvement, and the benefits that have accrued to them. We present the study context in the next section.

Appolonia City
Appolonia City is approximately 2,325-acre in size and located in the northeastern growth corridor of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, about 20 km outside of Accra ( Figure 1). The intention of Rendeavour is for Appolonia City to become independent of Accra. Rendeavour is one of the largest urban land developers in Africa, financing and developing over 30,000 acres of projects in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo  (van Noorloos & Kloosterboer, 2017). Appolonia City has been marketed as comprising a "special" partnership involving Rendeavour, village chiefs, village elders, and the Appolonia community (Rendeavour, 2017a). Inception of the project began in 2011 and was framed as an attempt to "alleviate urban congestion and dearth of quality housing and commercial property in Africa and to help create the infrastructure, namely, the living and working spaces, communities, schools and hospitals that will help sustain and accelerate Africa's economic growth" (Rendeavour, 2017c).
The City is designed to be of mixed-use and mixed-income, and home to 100,000 residents (Rendeavour, 2017c). Earmarked land uses include 789 acres for residential developments, 82 acres for a central business district, 96 acres for business corridors, 66 acres for light industrial and warehousing facilities, and 114 acres for community facilities, including schools and hospitals. The development has been marketed as providing both affordable and luxury housing units, with the starting price for a smaller (40 ft by 70 ft) serviced plot marketed at Ghc 130,790 (US$28,936). However, such housing will still be unaffordable to most Ghanaians, the majority (85%) of whom cannot even afford housing that costs Ghc 72,000 (US$18,972) 2 (The World Bank, 2015, p. 23). As Grant (2015b) suggests, "satellite cities could incorporate affordable housing, but their designers only pay token lip service to that notion" (p. 303). In terms of relieving Accra's traffic congestion, this claim is also questionable. The extent of company relocation from Accra and/or new firm formation located in the new commercial premises, both of which would allow workers to commute locally, remains unclear.

Appolonia village
The Appolonia villagers are the partnering member of the project. The village is located 3.3 km from Appolonia City. Although no official population records exist, according to a village stakeholder interviewed, a little over 1,000 people, both adults and children, reside in the community. To date, 90% of residents are Ga natives while 10% are migrants from other parts of Ghana (Table 1). The village owns over 12,000 acres of land, nearly 4,000 of which have allegedly fallen to encroachers. Lands at Appolonia are stool lands, meaning although the lands are collectively owned by the villagers, management remains vested with the chief and his council of elders, on behalf of the community. Farming, animal husbandry, and more recently sand-winning remain the dominant economic activities. The village boasts a creche, a primary and junior school, and a community health center. At the time the fieldwork was conducted, the village lacked a public toilet, and the water supply was erratic.

Research method
The study explicitly adopted a case study research design to add to the existing body of knowledge on "new city" processes in Africa. Previous analyses (Côté-Roy & Moser, 2019; Van Noorloos & Kloosterboer, 2017) suggest they are often structured as partnerships. Yet their assertions often lack a specific country, city, or community context to empirically illuminate pertinent issues such as how these partnerships are structured, who is involved, what role they play, how benefits and risks are assessed and shared, how communities are engaged, and just what are the impacts of such partnerships on urban governance within specific contexts. We aim to fill this gap through the case of Appolonia City, which we believe constitutes what Flyvbjerg (2006) calls a "critical case," being the first new largescale urban development in Ghana structured as a partnership between a foreign investor and a local community and for which project construction has begun, with some promised benefits starting to trickle in.
Given that the study draws analytical insights from urban governance theory, and which emphasizes multi-actor involvement in urban decision-making (Obeng-Odoom, 2013;Smit, 2018), it was important to adopt a research design that allowed the gathering of insights from these multi-actors. As such, the study adopted a mixed-methods approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative data and a variety of analytical techniques (Johnson et al., 2007).
The overall study took place at different times and from different locations. The first phase took place in Ghana between November 2017 and March 2018. During this period the first author and three field officers visited Appolonia village to gain an in-depth and a baseline understanding of the complex partnership arrangements and the entanglements surrounding it. During the first phase, primary data were gathered from face-to-face interviews with two categories of people sampled because of their privileged information about the execution of the partnership. The first category comprised "elites": representatives from both Rendeavour (Ghana) (a high-ranking officer, and a senior staff member) and the Appolonia villagers (an indigenous person, and influential businessmen who were close confidants of the deceased village chief). These elites were interviewed to understand why the partnership was formed, what it entailed, how the local community was involved, and what benefits the community received (Tansey, 2007). The second category comprised community stakeholders, including a member of the village Assembly, two leaders from one of the villagers' ruling clans, a male and a female youth leader, a local preacher, and a headteacher. It was arranged that all would speak anonymously, and therefore, freely. The community stakeholder interviews elicited information regarding historical antecedents in the village, economic activities and politics in the village, and benefits that have accrued to the village since the partnership was executed, to date.
In addition to the interviews, survey questionnaires were administered to households in the Appolonia village to ascertain among other things the extent of community involvement in the development of the new city. The questionnaire was structured into four parts. The first gathered respondents' demographic information; the second gathered respondents' perceptions of the community representatives on the project; the third elicited information regarding respondents' knowledge about the Appolonia City project; and the fourth section elicited data regarding the benefits villagers received.
A sample frame of 264 was estimated using a village population of 1,000, and the Greater Accra regional average household size of 3.8 (Government of Ghana, 2012, p. 85). The sample frame (264) translated into a representative household sample of 157 using a z-score of 1.96 and a 95% confidence level, based on the formula below (Obiri- Yeboah et al., 2021): where, N, e, p and z respectively denote population size, error margin (in decimals), 95% confidence interval (in decimals) and z-score).
In administering the survey questionnaires, the Appolonia KKDA Junior High School, located within the community was used as the start point for undertaking the questionnaire administration. The first author and three field officers moved in the north, south, east and west directions from this base, selecting every third house on our trail and interviewing the household heads in each dwelling. At the end of the survey, only 109 residents participated, increasing our statistically representative sampling error margin from 5% to 7.3%.
The second phase of the data gathering entailed repeated interviews with some of the interviewees, namely, two experienced sales and marketing officers at Appolonia City and three village stakeholders previously interviewed to ascertain changes that have occurred since the first phase. Grant and Oteng-Ababio (2021) argue that "a one-shot interview" is incapable of uncovering recent progression on social phenomena studied in complex, ill-defined and occluded domains. Hence repeated interviews, with the same group of respondents over time are useful in yielding a panoramic view of interviewees' learning, adaption and flexibility in changing their perspectives (see also, Read, 2018). These interviews were conducted over the telephone in March 2022, while the authors were overseas.
Finally, the study also drew on secondary data as a way to triangulate the information gathered from the interviews (Baxter & Jack, 2008). This included information about Appolonia City on the Rendeavour website, marketing brochures, and other online articles. Our primary qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis, drawing on Obeng-Odoom's (2012) three-step approach to urban governance research (section 3, above). The analysis used the statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS; version 26) and involved a combination of simple descriptive statistics, including percentages; measures of central tendencies (mean and standard deviation); and inferential statistics (ANOVA and t-tests).

Findings
The findings are organized into two parts. The first presents the demographic characteristics of respondents sampled from Appolonia village followed by a reflection on the historical antecedents in the village. This then provides context for the partnership formation. The second part delves into this partnership using the four components of the DEDA urban governance framework and reviews how each of these plays out in the different aspects of the partnership formed.

Respondents' demographic characteristics
Our survey respondents comprised 46.8% female and 53.2% male household heads, with 76.2% of respondents less than 46 years old. Nearly half (49.5%) were married, and typical of a Ghanaian rural village, half (50.5%) had up to and including four dependents. The respondents were employed in low skilled, paid employment, including petty trading and retailing (44%), farming (9.2%), and sandwinning (7.3%). The majority had low educational attainment, with 65% only educated up to the primary education level, while 3.7% had no formal education at all. Those employed earned a monthly income between Ghc 100 and 300 (US$35-90), far lower than the national average of Ghc 886 as of 2015 (Sasu, 2021).

Historical antecedents before the partnership formation
The DEDA urban governance framework emphasizes the importance of history and local contexts when appreciating urban decision-making (Asante & Helbrecht, 2019;Obeng-Odoom, 2012). This section, therefore, presents the historical antecedents leading up to the development of Appolonia City. Similar to most peri-urban areas of Greater Accra (Gough & Yankson, 2000;Kasanga et al., 1996), lands in Appolonia are owned by the Appolonia village but the chief retains vested powers to manage them on their behalf (stool lands; Kasanga, 1995).
However, as elsewhere in peri-urban Accra (Barry & Danso, 2014), there appears to be disagreement over which village clan qualifies to rule the community, and therefore can exercise jurisdiction over land administration. Appolonia villagers identify with six traditional clans that migrated from the Kpone paramountcy in the Greater Accra region, with the village reportedly first discovered and settled by three clans over a century ago. These clans naturally gained the right to exercise control over the discovered lands (see also, Abdulai & Ndekugri, 2008). These original clans were later joined by another three clans who were royals from the Kpone paramountcy and wanted to extend their royalty to and exercise control over the newly found land of Appolonia village. The first settlers rejected this claim. This lack of recognition created disaffection toward the chiefs enstooled by the first settlers, their successors, and the traditional council that was constituted. Leaders of the later settler clans have allegedly constituted themselves into a parallel institution and taken advantage of unsuspecting people to sell large tracts of village lands without the knowledge and consent of the chief and his elders. Where these actions have been discovered, they have then sought legal redress. However, adjudication of land disputes in Ghana are notoriously slow and cumbersome (Crook, 2005;Obeng-Odoom & Gyampo, 2017) and some litigations remain unresolved, sometimes for decades. This has hitherto made the village unattractive to potential investors. Village elders claimed (in interviews) that about 3,000 of their original 12,000 acres had either been encroached upon by surrounding communities or sold illegally by leaders of the late settler clans. This insight then sets the stage for analyzing the framing and motivation of the Appolonia City project from multiple actors' standpoints.

Decentralization and the framing of the Appolonia City project
From the perspective of Rendeavour, the vision of Appolonia City forms part of a continentalwide agenda to develop "new cities" across Africa that would decentralize and take away traffic congestion from existing capital cities, as well as reduce the fiscal burden on government and local planning authorities (Rendeavour, 2017b). As argued by the high-ranking officer in Rendeavour: We started this vision on the fact that our shareholders identify that there is a need for urban transformation in not just Ghana but across Africa. Here in Ghana, the government is trying to encourage decentralization, but you would agree that government cannot fund the provision of physical infrastructure . . . So, we have gained government and institutional support because the project is in line with the government's plans.
Indeed, available evidence suggests that the national government and local authorities have publicly endorsed the vision espoused here, with the president of Ghana on record praising not just that the local community would have a stake in the project but also the progress and economic development the project would bring to the area (Ehwi, 2020). Fält (2019) and Korah et al. (2021) also found evidence of planning officers at the district and national planning offices celebrating the project and viewing it as a contemporary modern city on completion. By comparison, in our interview, Rendeavour's high-ranking officials noted that the plans prepared by the district assembly were unambitious and not suited for such a largescale development project; and that, the district planning officers had to be flown to South Africa to see similar projects by the company to foreshadow the transformation that awaited the area: "We realized the local plans were not coordinated with the national land-use plan but ours were. . . . We took some of the planning committee members to South Africa to see some of our projects and they were impressed." Such visits are also indicative of an "interference" with urban imaginaries, as suggested by Bunnell (2015) for instance, and of policy mobility ideals (Côté-Roy & Moser, 2019); and reflect an attempt by the foreign investor to superimpose visions and aspirations conceived in one part of the world to another, irrespective of different historical, cultural and economic exigencies. Indeed, Korah et al. (2021) rightly observe that "a team of international and national professionals comprising urban planners, architects, surveyors, and civil engineers were engaged to design the project" and that "DCL Town Plan and Riana du Plessis Urban Planning, both South African Planning Consultants, designed the concept and master-plan for Appolonia City" (p. 8).
On the part of the Appolonia villagers, two key issues drove them to consider such a largescale development project. The first was the rapid loss of community lands through encroachments by surrounding villages that were expanding and through the unscrupulous activities of the late-settler clan members. The second motivation was the little economic progress the village had seen since its inception. As one interviewee stated, "the village's key economic mainstays of farming and sand-winning, were unsustainable" (Village elder #1). As illustrated in the following further quotes, among the village elders, the Appolonia City project was first seen as a risk mitigation strategy, then as a local economic development strategy, and finally as an opportunity for modernization: So now, the land is going [a vernacular to mean the land is rapidly being encroached upon], let's get some serious people who will come and invest. Their presence will help us, and they will pay us some financial considerations. (Influential local resident, emphasis added).
We have a vision to make Appolonia village a city on its own like Accra, with houses built like those in Britain, nice streets, and jobs for our people. (Village elder #2)

Entrepreneurialism and the partnership formation
Typically, partnerships are characterized by the following features: each party brings something of value, there is no unilateral decision-making by any party, there are commonly agreed rules and organized power to hold partners accountable, and good communication (Mohr & Spekman, 1994). In the case of Appolonia, the partnership was brokered between Rendeavour, represented by its national and continental representatives, and the local community represented by the chief and his council of elders. Rendeavour allegedly paid an undisclosed sum of money for the operational use of the land. This payment was corroborated by several village representatives in our interviews. The entire development, worth several millions of dollars, would be financed by Rendeavour and constructed using its expertise in developing similar projects elsewhere. In return, the village granted Rendeavour, the foreign investor, a 99-year lease on 2,325 acres of its stool land. The community's contribution to the partnership was significant in that, as per Article 266(4) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, Rendeavour was only entitled to a maximum of a 50-year lease at any given time. To circumvent this restriction, the partnership was indigenized through the formation of a development company, Appolonia Development Company Limited (ADCL). Significantly, one of the influential businessmen in our interviews, and confidantes to the chief, were appointed by Rendeavour to occupy a strategic position in ADCL, with the chief as a nominal board member. Rendeavour's representative remarked on the edge that the company thereby gained over their competitors, as follows: "Appolonia is stool lands, and we got a 99-year lease when obtained the land. We are very fortunate because our competitors are only given 50-year leases. This is what foreign investors are normally allowed in Ghana." In return, the community was allegedly given a 10% equity in ADCL. According to Rendeavour, establishing ADCL demonstrated its good faith toward the community, as its senior staff member argued: "we did this because it is necessary that we carry the village along with us." Rendeavour also proposed a trust into which the proceeds from the village's 10% equity would be held. However, this trust has not materialized, to date, given the alleged disputes with the late-settler clan leaders and their unwillingness to accept this partnership, particularly in its current form (see below).
In urban governance terms, the decision-making and implementation of partnership arrangements have a direct bearing on final project outcomes, thereby warranting further scrutiny. In Appolonia, the village representatives' decision to accept the 10% equity in the new company appears not to have been informed by any professional appraisal. Scrutinizing the basis of this equity further, and although Rendeavour may contest any claim of disproportionately benefiting from the partnership, the nondisclosure of exactly how much was paid for the use of the land and the lack of clarity regarding whether the 10% equity was preceded by professional valuations raises ethical concerns (Hunt & Vitell, 2006). This non-disclosure was especially problematic at a time when it was public knowledge that the leadership of the village was embroiled in land disputes. An interviewee provided a rationalization for accepting the equity arrangement: "I know people think the 10% equity is so little, but it is better than nothing because the village was getting nothing before Rendeavour came here." Further, in Ghanaian customary law, decisions regarding the granting of an interest in stool land, and for that matter, decisions regarding the use of the stool land as a basis for the partnership, should be made by the chief in consultation with principal elders (Ollennu, 1962). However, and consistent with the entrepreneurial leg of the DEDA framework, the chief instead drew on the counsel, connection, expertise, and wealth of the influential businessmen. These individuals proposed that the village enter a partnership rather than sell its land to Rendeavour outright, one of them justifying this decision as follows: Nothing was happening in the community; our neighboring villages were seriously encroaching on our land and these people [the leaders of the late settler clans] were also selling large tracts of our village lands to enrich themselves. So, I told the [former] chief that we should look for investors and enter into partnership with them and even if we get 10% share, it will be far better than the current situation. (Emphasis added) Several community stakeholders confirmed the immense role that the businessmen played in bringing Rendeavour to the area, as one of them remarked: The City of Light (local name for Appolonia City) came to Appolonia village through our brothers, friends and natives of this community called . . . . They are international businessmen who often travel outside and are known nationwide. They brought the Appolonia City idea and we joined him to fast-track the vision. (Village elder #1) However, unlike mainstream entrepreneurialism, which is inspired by capital accumulation and profit extraction, the village stakeholders interviewed (though except for the late-settler clan leaders), contended that the motivation behind the businessmen's involvement was purely welfare-oriented. For example, one interviewee observed: "I will say, they are rather protecting our interest rather than making themselves rich" (Villager elder #2).
While the foregoing confirms observations by Fuseini (2016) and Obeng-Odoom (2012) that not all entrepreneurialism is profit orientated, it also shows the nuanced ways in which traditional governance systems can be adapted to accommodate this kind of entrepreneurial ethos. In this case, people (the businessmen) who are not members of the group of village elders could be elevated to the position of a key decision-maker, here on land matters. In this light, money, power, and business acumen appear to have overshadowed long-established traditional requirements for being a principal elder, which includes, though are not limited to, having a noble character, being knowledgeable about local customs, and showing fidelity to one's community. That said, this adaptation of the traditional governance arrangement was not well received by everybody. For example, a late-settler clan elder argued (in an interview) how the sudden elevation of the influential businessmen to key decisionmakers had resulted in some village elders allegedly losing favor with the chief, stating: "Now they [the influential businessmen] have hijacked the village and the chief does not listen to anybody except them" (Late-settler clan elder #1). Moreover, it was not only leaders of the late-settler clan who were critical of this seeming adaptation of traditional governance arrangements to an entrepreneurial ethos. Our survey results suggest that community members in general also seemed unsure about whether their representatives on the ADCL board were legitimately chosen, with no statistically significant difference in opinions across different age brackets and residence statuses. Others disagreed with a statement (in our questionnaire) that the village representatives had been transparent about the benefits which would accrue to the community, with no statistically significant difference in opinions across gender, age bracket, income bracket, educational attainment, and residence status (see, Table 2).

Democratization: Community involvement and benefits of the partnership
The democratization leg of the DEDA framework emphasizes among other things: participation, transparency, and the ability of non-state actors to hold those with power to account (Asante & Helbrecht, 2019). More crucially, Mohr and Spekman (1994) highlight that good communication is characterized by accuracy, timeliness, adequacy, and credibility of information exchanged. In the Appolonia City project, one would have expected that Rendeavour's community relations officers would be the main medium through which important information about the project was communicated to the community, as the company officials claimed. However, our survey revealed that the most frequent way that community members obtained information about the project was through "neighbors and the grapevine" (at 38.7%), whilst the company's local public relations actions ranked third (at 20.2%; see, Table 3).
This prevalence of the grapevine is problematic in that facts can be exaggerated or distorted, as well as making the accuracy of other information difficult to discern. An overwhelming majority of survey respondents felt either "very uninformed" or "uninformed" about crucial details of the partnership, including the total land acquired (75%), the identity of the investors (78%), the amount paid for the land (77%), and the medium available to channel any concerns and grievances (52%; see, Table 4).
The denial of such crucial information to community members, coupled with limited opportunity to hold leaders to account suggests the Appolonia City project falls short of the democratic principles espoused in the DEDA framework. Community members have been effectively alienated from local urban governance at the outset. The power base of those directly involved in the management of ADCL has not only been strengthened, and the late-settler clan leaders have been provided grounds to legitimize the unfavorable narrative they were stoking up around the project.
On the benefits of the partnership, Obeng-Odoom (2012) suggests a need to analyze the end effects, including any ability to reduce poverty and enhance skills development. According to Rendeavour's representative, the company had already invested a lot into the community under its three pillars of corporate social responsibility-education, health, and the community itself. Specific initiatives cited included: creating a pool of skilled persons in the village for priority in job recruitment, the rehabilitation of basic schools in the village, the tarring of major roads that connect to the village, the building of a health center to curb infant mortality, and the building of a canteen to train village women in catering. Comparing these investments to the often unrealized promises made in large-scale  Note: Percentages exceed 100% because the question allowed respondents to select as many options that applied to them. Source: Authors' survey data (2018) land acquisition for biofuels (Aha & Ayitey, 2017;Ahmed et al., 2018;Boamah, 2014), it would seem that these commitments are relatively positive, and our survey results indeed corroborated many of these claims (see , Table 5). Also, several key village stakeholders interviewed lauded these investments, which many viewed as a sign the company was a trusted partner, acting in good faith (c.f. Korah et al., 2021).
What remains unclear, however, is whether the decision-making and implementation of these local investments were made through democratic means, with the active involvement of community members, as stipulated in Ghana's Local Government Act, 2016 (ACT 936) (Government of Ghana, 2016). Or, feasibly, whether the company unilaterally assumed it knew best and what was right for the villagers. For Obeng-Odoom (2013), the defining feature of urban governance is that it is an allinclusive process of taking care of cities and that unequal partnership arrangements can effectively set in motion project outcomes that do not necessarily reflect the needs of its citizens.
Moreover, there appears an unequal distribution of not just the benefits but also the risks accruing to both parties to the partnership. Phase 2 interviews with Rendeavour's sales and marketing team indicated that 36 homes have now been completed and sold in the Oxford development (a gated community in Appolonia City), with 18 households already moved in. Also, all the 68 and 251 serviced plots in Nova 1 and Nova 2 (serviced plots in Appolonia City) have been sold respectively at a sale price well above existing residents' means (as of the time of writing). Many therefore feel that no tangible benefits have accrued to them in the last three or four years (2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022). Significantly, the Appolonia villagers, led by its businessmen have also felt obliged to organize a fund-raising campaign to raise money to renovate aspects of their school building and facilities in October 2021 (see Graphic  (2) 0% (0) The amount investors paid for the land (n = 100) 52% (52) 25% (25) 22% (22) 1% (1) 0% (0) The person to whom payment for land was made (n = 100) 37% (37) 23% (23) 32% (32) 8% (8) 0% (0) The benefits the community stands to gain from the project (n = 100) 12% (12) 21% (21) 28% (28) 38% (38) 1% (1) Measures instituted by community representative to extract benefits for the community (n = 100) 23% (23) 30% (30) 29% (29) 17% (17) 1% (1) Measures instituted by investors to extract benefits for the community (n = 100) 15% (15) 25% (25) 36% (36) 20% (20) 4% (4) The adverse impact(s) the project would have on the community (n = 100) 15% (15) 36% (36) 39% (39) 9% (9) 1% (1) Measures instituted by community representatives to prevent adverse impact of project (n = 100) 21% (21)  Online, 2021), thus questioning further the extent to which the community has benefitted from the project as the "new city" progresses. The photographic images in Figure 2 (taken in March 2022) highlight that those tangible improvements to basic amenities remain to be seen. These images also allude to the improvements to local infrastructure being mere tokenism and lack of meaningful benefits on the ground, to date (Arnstein, 1969). Asante and Helbrecht (2019) contend that urban stakeholders will sometimes use various forms of activism. In Appolonia City, this has taken the form of legal proceedings by the late-settler clan's leaders, in protest over the entrepreneurial transformation of the traditional governance arrangements and the perceived "sell out" of the village's intergenerational equity in land for a paltry 10% (c.f. Fält, 2019). The proceedings are to effectively injunct the entire project. However, other village members suggested that the late-settler clans' leaders had increased their indiscriminate sale of vast swathes of village land and recruited landguards 3 to harass outsiders who receive a grant of land from the chief and his elders (Asafo, 2020). The reason, according to one village elder, is to "put fear and doubts into the minds of potential investors and businesses who want to come and operate in Appolonia city and the village at large" (Village elder #2).   (2018) Also, follow up interviews revealed that since 2018, the activities of landguards have become more prominent in the village. The village youth leader bemoaned how landguards have taken over their plot of land. This claim is further backed by news headlines published since 2019, including headlines such as "Appolonia notorious land guard caged" (Abaare, 2021), and "Group threaten to deal with landguards at Appolonia" (Ghanaian Times, 2020). Village residents observe that while Appolonia City has been using the military to patrol its land boundaries to ward off landguards, the village is left to its fate as landguards overwhelm the village.

Activism around the partnership
Whilst it is hard to substantiate these interview and media claims, it does appear that the late-settler clan leaders have been employing tactics akin to subterfuge (Mitlin, 2018) to achieve their aims. On the one hand, they claim they are using legally-established means of court proceedings to challenge the partnership arrangement; on the other, they are allegedly using criminalized practices 4 and multiple sales of land to achieve their goal.
A further example of such activism was provided by one of the youth leaders who also felt dissatisfied with the partnership and the promised benefits to the village, and who mentioned: "we will not sit back for the big men to enjoy all the booty whilst we-whose futures are at stake, sit back and do nothing." When pressed, they observed that "we have held meetings and informed the elders that we are not happy with the way things are going." The form of activism described here and involving the use of meetings and dialogs with village leadership can be contrasted with the criminalized practices alleged to be perpetrated by the leaders of the late settler clans, in that it appears to achieve the twin objectives of signaling the youth's displeasure while at the same time respecting the traditionally established authority of village elders.

Discussion and conclusion
Ghana's ambition to make Accra a city attractive to global capital is confronted with intractable urban problems. Rising demand far outstrips the poorly inadequate supply of housing, sanitation, basic infrastructure, and amenities (Morrison, 2017). Large-scale foreign investor-led development of satellite cities, like Appolonia City, have therefore gained traction. They appeal to national and local governments to develop a new generation of showcase city projects across more extensive areas (Fält, 2019). Yet peculiar challenges face rural communities where these satellite cities are often developed, including complex traditional landholding systems, where indigenous and foreign interests in land are co-mingled in 99-year lease arrangements. On top of this long-standing myriad of land ownership arrangements and land disputes, these newly formed partnership arrangements between foreign investors and village leaders can have long-term ramifications for the local community.
Drawing on the DEDA urban governance framework, this paper empirically scrutinized the complex partnership arrangements forged between foreign investors and village leaders in one such project, namely Appolonia City. The study points to a radical transformation in urban governance for both community leadership and citizenship in the following ways, which differs from municipal governance found in Ghana (Fuseini, 2016).
At a community leadership level, what has been revealed is a complex and entangled governance process through which customary law regarding the transfer of interests in land has been superseded by a private arrangement between traditional rulers and business interests. In this process, the power of village elders to be involved in final decisions affecting the wellbeing of their communities becomes restricted to mere board members. Decisions can be challenged, and even rejected by other board members, including members from the foreign investment company. Also, following this entangled governance process, it appears schisms in clans are getting deeper in the village and sabotage tactics used by the excluded clan leaders appear to have escalated, thereby exacerbating tensions and disharmony in the community at large.
At the community level, meaningful community engagement in project decision-making risks being reduced to a corporate public relations activity. The imperative to consult residents on local development matters, such as improving school buildings and clinics, shifts from one anchored on statutory obligation (c.f. Section 40 of Ghana's Local Government Act, 2016[Government of Ghana, 2016) to a voluntary corporate decision-making process. Also, in this new form of urban governance, the basis for residents having a say in local development matters shifts from being anchored on having a local indigenous connection, to having the financial clout and social capital to attract foreign investors. This reconfiguration of urban governance also taps into and is bolstered by complex local exigencies, notably inter-clan disputes over chieftaincy, economic stagnation, and residents' low educational attainment to speak out. As the research findings reveal, these entanglements among indigenous stakeholders manifest in terms of who speaks on their behalf (in this instance, the Board of Trustees) and who becomes excluded from the newly created urban governance framework. Moreover, the myriad of entanglements that lie beneath the brokered partnership arrangement also risks providing a basis for both foreign investors and local elites to undisclosed crucial information and limit the participation in the project benefits.
There are still crucial questions about the Appolonia City project that merit further examination. It remains unclear, for example, whether villagers will have their lands returned and how they will benefit from the investments made once the 99-years lease expires or is even perhaps extended. Also, whether Appolonia City would be able to realize its aims to alleviate urban congestion and the dearth of quality housing and commercial property in Africa remain unknown. In addition, it could be argued that an eminent gap between how Appolonia City was originally framed and marketed on paper, and how its development is evolving on the ground is becoming increasingly evident. We, therefore, encourage further in-depth research, not just building on our case study but extending the focus across Africa, and elsewhere to shed greater light on urban governance, partnership formation, and community engagement in Africa's "new cities." Not only will greater empirical knowledge expose power imbalances between foreign investors and local communities, but it will also create a further imperative for robust urban governance principles.