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Steering Committee

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Nana Asantewa Afadzinu

West Africa Civil Society Initiative (WACSI)

Nana Asantewa Afadzinu

West Africa Civil Society Initiative (WACSI)

Nana Asantewaa Afadzinu is the Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). She has worked with and within the civil society space for the past 24 years.

A lawyer by profession and listed on Avance Media’s 100 Most Influential African Women List in 2020, Nana Afadzinu has worked in the areas of governance, human rights, philanthropy, and capacity development with several mission-oriented organizations in Africa. These include the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), and IBIS West Africa, among others.

She has also served as a member of several public service, corporate and non-profit boards, including but not limited to the AfDB-CSO Committee, the International Society for Third-Sector Research, YALI West Africa, and Star Ghana Foundation. She is also a trustee of OXFAM GB, a board member of Resource Alliance, and a member of the Advisory Council of the SDG Philanthropy Forum in Ghana.

Nana Afadzinu is an alumna of the University of Ghana, Faculty of Law; the Ghana School of Law; the Columbia University Human Rights Advocates Program; and the New York University School of Law.

Dr Aliou Barry

Stat View International

Dr Aliou Barry

Stat View International

Dr. Aliou Barry is the Founder and Director General of Stat View International in the Republic of Guinea. He is an international development professional with over 25 years of experience in development work with local, international, and the government of Guinea.

He is also among the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption’s (GOPAC) Global Task Force Team (2021–2023) on the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the head of a coalition of key Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Guinea that has launched the "Alliance Citoyenne pour la Transition" or the "Citizens Alliance for the Transition" ACT that intends to fully play its role of watchdog, alert and force of proposls for the return to the constitutional order following the military coup that took place in the country in 2021.

Dr. Barry has served in the Parliament of Guinea as the President of the Commission for Agriculture, Energy, Water, Natural Resources, Environment, Transport, and Industry. He was a key member of the Executive Committee of Parliament (2010–2014); a member of the Guinean Presidency’s National Anti-Corruption Agency (2007–2014); a coordinator of the Francophone CSO Coalition for Integrity and Development (2009–2012); a member of the United Nations technical advisory committee for the Equator Prize on sustainable development (2013–2015); and a member of the Audit Committee of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) based in Toronto (2010–2014).

Dr. Barry was a Ph.D. research fellow at Maastricht University on the economy, governance, and policy analysis (2008–2010).

Ms. Idayat Hassan

Center for Democracy and Development

Ms. Idayat Hassan

Center for Democracy and Development

Idayat Hassan is the Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a Nigeria-based organization engaging in policy advocacy and research focusing on deepening democracy and development in West Africa.

Idayat’s interests include democracy, peace and security, and transitional justice in West Africa.

She has been granted fellowship in several universities across Europe and America.

Sulemana Braimah

Media Foundation for West Africa

Sulemana Braimah

Media Foundation for West Africa

Sulemana Braimah is the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). He is also the Secretary General of the ECOWAS Civil Society Platform on Transparency and Accountability in Governance (ECSOPTAG); a member of the Executive Committee of the West Africa Civil Society Forum (WACSOF); and a member of the Steering Committee of the African Network of Free Expression organizations (AFEX). He also served on the 13-member Governing Council of IFEX, the global network of free expression organizations based in Toronto, Canada (2011–2015).

Sulemana previously worked with The Chronicle newspaper in Ghana as a reporter and later became the paper’s News Editor. He was also a contributing writer on media and communications issues for suite101.com while studying at the University of Manitoba, Canada, in 2009.

He has been a reviewer of the annual global press freedom ratings (Freedom of the Press Index) by the US-based Freedom House Inc. He has participated in and presented papers on media rights and freedom of expression issues at various national, regional, and international conferences.

Sulemana holds an M.Phil in Communication Studies and a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology (with Philosophy – First Class Hons) from the University of Ghana.

Professor Augustin Loada

Center for Democratic Governance (CGD)

Professor Augustin Loada

Center for Democratic Governance (CGD)

Professor Augustin Loada is the founder and first Executive Director of the Center for Democratic Governance (CGD), a Burkina Faso-based research center conducting studies in the fields of governance and democratization. He is also a member of the Afrobarometer network.

Prof. Loada served as Minister of Civil Service, Labour and Social Protection in the Transitional Government of Burkina Faso between 2014 and 2015. He also participated in the UN mission in New Caledonia as an electoral expert from 2016 to 2022 and has chaired this group of experts since 2018.

He has been a Professor of Public Law and Political Science at Thomas Sankara University, Burkina Faso, since 1995.

Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh

Ghana Center for Democratic Development

Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh

Ghana Center for Democratic Development

H. Kwasi Prempeh is the Executive Director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana). Before assuming the leadership of the Center, Kwasi was a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law, New Jersey, USA, from 2003 to 2015. He was a visiting professor at GIMPA Law School, Accra, from 2010 to 2011 and has co-taught the “Constitution-Building in Africa” course at the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, since 2014. From 2013-2014, he served as constitutional adviser to the UN Special Envoy to Yemen.

A 2011 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, Kwasi Prempeh is an expert on democratization, governance, and constitutionalism in Ghana and Africa and has published widely in the field, including articles in the influential Journal of Democracy and International Journal of Constitutional Law.

He previously practised law in Washington, D.C. A 1993 graduate of Yale Law School, Kwasi also holds a Master’s degree in business administration from Baylor University (Texas, USA) and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Ghana. He is a member of the Ghana Law Reform Commission.

Dr. Chukwuemeka B. Eze

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP)

Dr. Chukwuemeka B. Eze

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP)

Mr. Otoo has about 15 years of experience in investment banking, consulting and private equity, having worked with Goldman Sachs, Mckinsey and Duet, among others.

His experience in finance was honed at Goldman Sachs & Co.’s New York City office from 2007, where his responsibilities included coordinating and managing origination, valuation, acquisition and due diligence for investment transactions. In 2006 and later between 2010 and 2013, he worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey’s New York City office, where he worked with senior executives and boards across different industries on various strategic, finance and operational issues. His work involved transformation programs at some of the major US banks and the broader financial services sector.

Mr. Otoo received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School as a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar. He received his certification as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) in 2005, and as a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and a Certified Financial Manager (CFM) in 2004. Mr. Otoo attended Grinnell College in the US, for his undergraduate studies where he received majors in Economics and Computer Science with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

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