Professor Takyiwaa Manuh

Takyiwaa Manuh is the Director of the Social Development Policy Division at the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Takyiwaa was Professor of African Studies at the University of Ghana between 2006 and 2011, and was the university’s Director of the Institute of African Studies between 2002 and 2009. Her research interests are in African development, women’s rights and empowerment, contemporary African migrations, and African higher-education systems.

Born in Kumasi, Ghana, she was educated at the Wesley Girls’ High School, Cape Coast; the University of Ghana; the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Indiana University in the US. She has also practiced as a lawyer and is active in the women’s movement in Ghana.

She has taught courses in gender studies and was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy, and the Centre for Migration Studies, at the University of Ghana.

She is the chairperson for ABANTU for Development, the Media Foundation for West Africa, and a board member of the Ghana Institute of Journalism.

In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received a number of other awards and fellowships including the University of Ghana’s Meritorious Service Award for 2007 and the Order of the Volta (Officer Class) in 2007.