Policy and institutional barriers to circular economy adoption in Ghana’s manufacturing sector: A systematic review

Ghana's manufacturing sector is expanding, yet production remains dominated by linear models that intensify waste, resource losses, and environmental risk. Despite the growing policy attention, circular economy (CE) remains marginal. This paper examines why CE adoption has stalled, focusing on the policy and institutional conditions shaping cleaner production. The contribution is threefold: integrating coded scientific and policy evidence into one set of gap themes; applying a severity-likelihood assessment to rank rather than list barriers; and using the Multi-Level Perspective as an interpretive lens for why barriers persist, calibrated against evidence from Morocco, Kenya, and South Africa. A dual systematic review combined a PRISMA-guided synthesis of 32 peer-reviewed studies with a desk review of 23 policy and institutional documents. Both streams were coded separately, integrated into 16 unified gap themes, and analysed using a severity-likelihood matrix to assess criticality of barriers. CE adoption is constrained less by technology than by regime-level governance weaknesses that persist because policy attention has produced engagement without institutional reconfiguration. Fragmented mandates, financing and infrastructure deficits, and limited skills and awareness emerge as the highest-risk barriers. Informal actors and manufacturing SMEs play central roles in material recovery but remain weakly recognised, while policy favours downstream waste management over upstream eco-design and industrial symbiosis. Ghana exemplifies a broader African pattern of CE being endorsed but weakly operationalised; the paper outlines priority reforms to policy, coordination, and support instruments needed to move CE from pilot initiatives to systemic practice.