Women academics from Ghana

"I came to the United States of America conscious of my African-ness, conscious of my blackness, I became conscious of women studies and became a feminist."

"A lot of work is being done by feminist because we have to think about breaking the glass ceilings and think about if the systems we have been living under will work for us what is different what to do."

"Thinking through what makes a leader, how do you communicate and how do you organize yourself."

"What makes a leader different is the different communication styles respecting different forms of leadership."

"Historically leadership and the concept has always been the top down one most of us who do leadership training we do the bottom up leadership you don't impose structure you figure out organically who the people are."

"The idea of family however conceived is at the root of old family structure and we leave in a world were those family structure are in the end the basis of the legal, religious,social and state laws under which we live."

"New family law can end violence against women."

"Violence is both visible and invisible."

"Dreamers remember their dreams when they are disturbed;And you shall not escape what we will make of the broken pieces of our lives."

"You cannot know how long we cried until we laughed over the broken pieces of our dreams."

"We are all mothers,and we have that fire within us,of powerful womenwhose spirits are so angry, we can laugh beauty into life and still make you taste the salty tears of our knowledge."

"For we are not tortured anymore; we have seen beyond your lies and disguises, and we have mastered the language of words, we have mastered speech and know we have also seen ourselves raw and naked piece by piece until our flesh lies flayed with blood on our own hands."

"What terrible thing can you do us which we have not done to ourselves? What can you tell us which we didn’t deceive ourselves with long time ago?"

"Hello everybody and thank you for joining us, wherever in the world you’re joining us from. My name is Abena Busia. I am a Ghanaian, very proud to be so, a Ghanaian writer and poet, and currently Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil. I am very, very honoured today, however, to be part of this festival and to interview a friend of mine, an extraordinary woman herself who today is best known for co-winning the 2019 Booker Prize with her eighth book, Girl,Woman, Other, making her the first Black woman to win it. But for some of us, her reputation preceded that."

"For some of us, she is a person who is a trailblazer and a visionary who has helped put Black women writers – particularly those writing out of Britain – on the map. She is visionary, she is feisty, and she has an acute sense of the politics of being and the politics of representation. Yet in all of that, her wit and her wisdom have brought to consciousness the place of those of us Black people of African descent growing up in England – the way we negotiate our identities, the way we negotiate the politics of space, the way we interact intergenerationally and between ourselves [which] has been, for some of us, the food of life."

"Her first non-fiction book, Manifesto, on never giving up, is to be published next month. And she has taken that wit and wisdom so many places, including, most crucially, the academy, where today she is professor of creative writing at Brunel University in London and vice-president of the Royal Society of Literature."

"Yes, and we will come back to that and the matter of your hidden histories. But I now want to ask a question about something that not many people think and talk about. And that is, what is a catholic grasp, if you like, of the place of Black writers in British society? I had the privilege of hearing you speak, five years ago, at [the] African Literature Association conference in Germany and I remember being struck by your keynote speech, about the way you could so clearly map the progress of Black writing, the recognition of Black writing and the issues that Black writers had taken on in the public space: naming the challenges and difficulties you face in the sense of not just what you wrote but that you wrote at all, that you existed at all. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that activist part of the collectivity before we return to the question of your personal creativity."

"Well, you did it very well, I must confess . You do succeed in bringing us along. To the point where I am about to send your novel to somebody facing that dilemma. Because it’s not easy on either side. And to be honest, yours was the first thing I read that made it so clear how difficult it was, but at the same time humanised the process both from the point of view of the person transitioning as well as the point of view of the people receiving them. Her grandmother’s responses, the point where her grandmother says, “Look, love, I was born in the 1920s” or whatever it was, you know, “You do your thing but it’s too late for me, I’m a hundred, take it or leave it!” (APAB and BElaughing) “I love you anyway, you can come to the farm but that... I’ve got other things to fight!” Which was also very [much] to the point. Her grandmother had had different things to negotiate, generations of displacement, fatherlessness or in her case, a father who didn’t get it, and looking for her daughter for seventy years. So, again, the complexity of the stories that get bound up in this vision of “This is who we are and need to understand”."

"There are a couple of people who have identified themselves [in the chat], including the person who invited us both here, Amina Mama, and I just want to read what Amina says because I think it’s important and it emphasises what you said when you introduced yourself and your origins. Amina has put up on the platform that she grew up between Nigeria and London, so the exactness of your portrayals hits her very deeply. And it is true that there was only Buchi Emecheta in those days, and [she’s] celebrating the fact that our daughters and mothers have you to read. So that was her comment."

"It’s interesting though. I had a similar experience very, very recently. I am working on an epic poem, in fact, of Black women all over the place, the spirit of a Black woman from what is now Ghana who is following her lost daughters in all these spaces and through time. And I was so excited to discover that book about Black Tudors, Black people in Tudor England.1 What excited me was looking at the timeline. I grew up in this little English country village outside Oxford which was part of the divorce settlement between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves ... (laughs)... documented! And I found enough material in this book on Black Tudors to decide that one of my little daughters is going to get lost in Standlake in Anne of Cleves’ manor house!"

"Yes, it is liberating and so wonderful to find the historians supporting our imaginative lives."

"Always, always, always uplifting to see and hear you, Bernardine. It matters to some of us that you are out there in the world, so keep on your journey, and thank you so much."

"Thank you! That’s a wonderful concluding statement. As always, moti-vating us to be inspirational and think about our own lives. On that note, I would like to thank all of you who are out there in different parts of the world, those of you who are in this room, for being here. This has been a privilege."

"It was a good piece because it creates the atmosphere and the vision. Carole is very interesting, of course, because she is the woman of disguises. The woman who has a secret that she needs to [or] feels she needs to keep quiet about in order to negotiate. I love her mother who is like, “I am a Nigerian and so are you, and we’re not going to get past this, so let’s...” The scenes with her mother and the ways in which the mother helps her re-find herself by dealing with, who is the person that you’re going to marry. I will ask you now about the structure of this particular book and the multiple voices, the twelve different voices, all of whom are connected – some intimately, some tangentially."

"I am one of these obsessive people that find myself going back, going “Oh! Oh! Oh yes! That was that person’s classmate” and “Oh yes! It’s the same teacher.” Going through all of that and trying to understand. I wonder, what inspired you to create the book that way and what was the kernel that made you in a sense move out and flourish from?"

"And that’s important. I do want us to turn to your own writing, but I have to acknowledge that it is characteristic of you not only that you have been an activist but that you always acknowledge the people that you’ve been working with, and the importance of a collective voice and solidarity has always been part of your work which some of us really appreciate. I’m going to extrapolate something from that, that may or may not be true, and that is: I see that collec-tivity actually in the structure of your novels."

"The mentoring effect is taking someone under your wing encouraging them to reach their highest potentials."

"Education is crucial. In order for Women to fully participate in policymaking, in government, we need to look beyond primary education."

"One way to increase the number of women in Secondary and tertiary education is through the 'Role Model Effect'. The more women you have as teachers in Secondary school, the better the performance of female students"

"That in order to enable more women to benefit more from economic activity and participate in policy-making there is a need to look beyond primary education. Although gender parity in primary education has been nearly achieved in most countries, women and girls now need increased opportunities for secondary and tertiary education in order to occupy visible and powerful roles in the society. Currently, the gender gap remains wide between females and males in secondary and tertiary education."

"This paper analyzes the determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to developing countries and examines why Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been relatively unsuccessful in attracting FDI despite policy reform. The results indicate that the factors that drive FDI have a differential impact on FDI flows to SSA. Specifically, infrastructure development and a higher return on capital promote FDI to non-SSA countries. In contrast these factors have no effect on FDI to SSA. Openness to trade promotes FDI to both SSA and non-SSA countries, however, the marginal benefit from increased openness is less for SSA-suggesting that trade liberalization will generate more FDI to non-SSA countries than SSA countries. Another important finding is that there is an "adverse regional effect" for SSA: a country in SSA will receive less FDI by virtue of its geographical location. These results suggest that Africa is different!"

"I recounted a recent story of my first time meeting former mentee, Frances Nakakawa, at a conference in Finland after which she became mentee and Director of AAAWE Uganda. As a single mother of three in Uganda, she had to make the difficult decision of sending her children to a boarding school to balance her work, studies, and caring for her children. And even after placing her children in private school, the distance, worry, and longing to see them was often a distraction during her studies."

"It’s a combination of hard work, identifying opportunities and taking advantage of those opportunities, and some favour from God that makes great."

"students must be challenged to focus on critical thinking and analytical skills since rote learning has not been helpful, there is the need to create avenues for students to explore their creative sides, music and dance."

"We should be less focused on assessing students based on memory, and more on application. For that to happen, we need to focus on teacher training, incentivise our brightest students to go into teaching and keep small class sizes to allow for more interaction."

"Lifelong learning must not be confined to the classroom or to any age in life as life is dynamic; and the day you stop learning, you become intellectually dead and cease to be relevant to your society."

"If anyone wants to make a mark in life, then there was the need to invest in one’s personal development. Spend time and effort developing yourself. Jesus private prayer life was the key to His robust public ministry."

"Be unfazed by obstacles. Obstacles are going to come on your journey, but be unfazed. Like me, you are bound to have setbacks and rejection, but don’t back down. Without a resilient spirit, you’re bound to give up when you’re ultimately meant for the top."

"You can’t do everything by yourself. Be on the lookout for talent; know the wide array of skills and strengths of your team and harness them for your benefit."

"Give people the opportunity to prove themselves, but assign key roles to trusted people. Stakeholder engagement is really key and you cannot succeed as a leader without it."

"Because I do believe I’m not the only one who works the hardest – yes, I do work hard, but it’s also important to take advantage of opportunities as they come, because they prepare you for positions ahead."

"My parents were teachers, they put a premium on education and they did not discriminate as far as their daughters or sons were concerned. They gave me the opportunity to get educated to the highest level that I so desired. They brought me up to believe that I can do anything that I wanted to – anything that my brothers could do, I could also do."

"Coming to this position, I intend to drive the growth of this university through technology and humanism. The past two years has taught us we all need to take technology very seriously and we’ve had experiences of what we can use technology for. In every aspect of the university’s operations – from research management to teaching and learning, to administrative processes, to student management – I intend that technology drives this. But we should not forget that we’re there for the humans … the university exists for the good of the larger society."

"Men have dominated our boardrooms, men have dominated academia. Here in my university, the proportion of women academics, that’s just about 30 per cent. And as you can imagine, the higher you go up the ranks, the fewer women that you find. But, I must say, that it’s a good time at my university, I am the first female vice-chancellor. For the first time too, we have a female chancellor, we also have a female council chair for the first time. It is a source of encouragement to many females out there, but also for males – they dream for themselves, they dream for their wives, their daughters, their sisters."

"Pragmatics specifically looks at language use in context. For you to be able to make meaning out of what we say, you almost always need the context. Sometimes you need the history, the religion, the culture, you need the philosophy and so on."

"For example, if you have a scientific innovation, which is expected to help farmers increase their yield, how is it that you communicate to that group of farmers who don’t have so much education, such that they appreciate that scientific innovation and how it can enhance their yield?"

"Absolutely, both need mentoring and I have mentored both men and women in my career. What I seek to do is to support women to come out of their shells, to support women to overcome the barriers that prevent them from achieving their highest potential. That’s why I think that women need special attention – we have so much great potential, but there are so many things that encumber us in society, our gender roles, what society expects of us. These tend to hinder us from being professionally excellent."

"Understand the authority you have; but keep your head low because positions don’t last forever. It’s not really about you, it’s about your office. If you don’t build networks and lifelong relationships, you could be very lonely at the end of your tenure."

"That is to say they must keep in touch with what was going on across the world but engage it based on the local context of the country’s population, literacy levels, access to technologies and its (country’s) priorities."

"In my induction speech, I clearly stated that my goal as Vice-Chancellor would be to train students who are critical thinkers, technologically adept, humane, culturally sensitive and ready to provide leadership for the nation and continent."

"Education was at the heart of national development and higher education was at the apex and that this conversation is critical because we have to periodically examine how we deliver this all-important mandate."

"I always wanted to be a professor at the very top. It’s not your teacher, mentor, boss or parent’s responsibility."

"The two concepts driving my tenure are technology and humanism. We need to incorporate technology in our teaching and learning in small and big ways."

"I launched the Vice-Chancellor’s Programme for Classroom Modernisation and Learning Experience, One-Student; One-Laptop, and our hotspot comfort zone as part of the technology and humanity focus."

"From the beginning it wasn’t something I had my eyes on but as I built my academic career, as I developed my administrative competencies, and with the inputs and support of others I worked with, at some point I convinced myself that when the position is vacant I will give it a shot."

"I will say I have been blessed in many ways as I started my family life before my career. I started my Master’s when my first child was four months old so while I was studying, I was raising him. And this was out of Ghana so I didn’t have my mother or auntie to support me in raising him, which made it difficult. While I was doing my Master’s I had my second child."

"We must provide opportunities that transcend political patronage 'connection' and the practice of whom-you-know. Equal and fair opportunities based on merit are an imperative for sustainable economic growth. The time for a shift is now."

"“It’s all about putting the group above the individual and understanding that our actions today shape the legacy we leave for tomorrow”"

"“My age is not a nuisance, it is a blessing … I’m proud of every minute God has given me.”"

"“When you are going into an election and you are very sure that the right structures have been put in place … whatever outcome you get, you are compelled to accept it.”"

"“Politics should be geared towards development and devoid of insults and acrimony.”"

"“The NPP’s ‘It Is Possible’ is pure deception: look at their track record.”"

"“Politics about fighting injustice, hunger, hopelessness, arrogance, selfishness, unbridled greed, corruption, state capture, disrespect of fellow human beings.”"

"Governments must continuously demonstrate that education is the fulcrum of all development, the hub around which all spokes - security, health, the economy, climate change, equality, human rights and others revolve."

"I found school to be a fun place, making friends, learning and discovering new things. The most impactful teachers were those who smiled, encouraged, tolerated, and who recognized that some flowers take time to bloom."

"If we base our conviction on the premise that everyone can learn, then we can reach out of school girls too, with different modes of learning. The longer we keep girls out of school, the further the number increases and the more the desire for global peace will elude us all."

"A major pillar is effective public education on the importance of effective education for all, especially for girls and women to ground their central role in the life of the family, society, self."

"I am not an economist but I understand the economy. Naana Opoku-Agyemang to critics"

"Giving up is not an option. Stay the course. As a people, we have survived many unspeakable atrocities. Read and know your true history. We just celebrated the Year of Return. Read that history, very, very carefully. It has not been a nice cup of sobolo."

"Making history is gratifying; but what really matters is not to be first through the door. What matters is to hold the door open for those behind us and create other avenues for self actualization for many more."

"We are a people who jump over many hurdles. Walking that road is an act of courage. That experience is a forge of character."

"When there appears to be selective justice; when some offenders are not even placed on the hook but are hailed and promoted for being nasty and violent, the logical outcome is what we see."

"To all the little girls and boys across our country, always dream big; remain focused. You can grow to become anything you want to be."

"Believe that only you can stop yourselves. It is not going to be about your parents, rich or poor; not the region you come from and whether it is endowed with resources or not. Remember that natural endowment is what it is; it did not come from the effort of anyone. It is nature that placed those resources there. That is why we call them natural resources."

"The 2024 election is about "reversing the negative trend" set by the current government and emphasized the need for accountability, prosperity, and job creation."

"We find the political capture of the broadcast media space, in particular, and the increasing concentration of the media in a few hands as worrying for the country’s democracy, and there is the need to address this situation."

"Investigative journalists are the most at risk of attack and state actors, including political appointees and police, are the worst perpetrators of attacks on journalists."

"As we globalise and link up with the wider world, we need to always be reminded of what makes us unique."

"Media are a public good and must be supported to survive, if nothing else in the interest of democracy."

"As the maxim underscoring the symbiotic relationship between democracy and media holds, where there is democracy, there must be free media and where there is free media, the political system being practised is bound to be democratic."

"In today’s world and with social media the children are going to learn about that which is a taboo in this country which is homosexuality."

"The study revealed that media ownership in the country was shrouded in opacity, with political faces found to be behind most of the broadcast media entities."

"While there were growing tendency towards media empire-building, the National Communication Authority (NCA) had a laissez faire attitude to questions about transparency of the media ownership."

"Political faces behind broadcast media ownership mean that partisan actors and governments can control public discourse, and this is not good for our democracy."

"Generally, many organisations in Ghana are not profitable and are, at best, breaking even and cannot fund investigative reports because of the cost involved."

"The study found that the traditional media organisations were heavily dependent on the pharmaceutical industry, especially herbal products, for adverts."

"In terms of working conditions of the media, the study found that journalists worked in precarious conditions, with some of them working without any contract or receiving salary at all."

"It was discovered that in most of the media houses, there was no clear-cut promotion mechanisms."

"The report also found that many journalists had the feeling that law enforcement agencies and the judiciary did very little to protect their safety."

"As a researcher with a multidisciplinary focus, I am always looking for opportunities to expand my research agenda in ways that are meaningful, particularly in relation to African development. The APN has impacted my perspective and focus, in that I am now more consciously deepening my knowledge on peacebuilding, security, and development."

"I came to the subject by accident, by being invited primarily by training institutes such as Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) to lecture for one of their courses. For example, next week I am teaching part of a course on gender and conflict, where I will speak about gender, media, and conflict. So, you can imagine that chairing the conference panel at Wilton Park on “Case Studies: The Role of Civil Society across Regions,” particularly focusing on gender, provided me with another opportunity to expand my knowledge and challenged me to think about issues in a different way. Therefore, when I teach that course, this experience will inform some of the perspectives that I bring to it."

"The opportunity to do good research certainly. However, additionally, the networking and the other processes, such as training workshops, around the grant meant that I had the opportunity to engage multiple times with other grantees and to be mentored in that sense to sort of reshape my ideas. I also had the opportunity to organize a regional training workshop for practicing journalists in the West African sub-region on reporting about peacebuilding, with a couple of APN grantees as resource persons. One of them, Dr. Peace Medie, just last week sent me a published article based on an aspect of the lecture she gave for that workshop. So it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of sharing ideas and research and publication opportunities."

"Yes, I definitely think that APN grantees and prospective applicants should take advantage of the broader APN network as much as possible. I think that is the broader benefit of the grant, becoming part of a constantly growing pool of people: colleagues, experts, mentors, and practitioners working on peacebuilding."

"This happens both locally and across the continent. For example, there’s another APN Alumnus at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), also here at the University of Ghana, Legon with me, Dr. Amanda Coffie (IRG 2016). Amanda reached out to me so we can get together and do some talking on what she’s working on, just informally. Also, I share information and articles with another Alumnus from LECIAD, Dr. Peace Medie (IRG 2015, BMC 2016)."

"Beyond building connections within institutions, the APN has helped me to meet contacts working on similar topics throughout Africa. Sometimes, when I am writing a paper and want to have an idea of those that are doing similar work or topics, I first go through my APN contacts and see if anyone has done something in this field, what their thinking is, and then build on that. Future APN grantees should take advantage of the large and growing network, in formal and informal ways, because it’s really a great resource."

"There are certain traits you learn at home and of course you continue learning in school but what is prevalent in the house is what really influences you. So growing up under such an environment, you learn contentment and whatever you have, you thank God and use it."

"People should know that life is not a race and should not expect to make within a year what someone took so many years to make. Just know where you are coming from and know where you are going and how to get to where you want in life."

"We shouldn’t forget prayer and right living with God and never try to get ahead of Him because we may hit our heads against the wall. Just be hardworking and leave the rest for God because he knows our frailties."

"What I liked most about them was that they never pretended to have what they did not, they made me understand the circumstances of my existence and therefore I didn’t compare myself to others and didn’t expect much more than they provided. So with such upbringing, you tend to be content with whatever was available."

"I am not sure what happened in 1979 cured the nation of greed and thievery. Sometimes people say the end justifies the means, but to what end was that? Subsequent to 1979, look at the huge amounts people are stealing. They con the state to give them monies and they call it judgment debt."

"Growing up, I was greatly influenced by my parents because although poor, they were very honest and would always make sure that we did not deceive anybody."

"It was my childhood dream to be a Foreign Affairs Minister because I thought traveling would be fun. However, the 1979 coup I indicated, killed that political ambition. Rawlings came into power in 1979 and staged his coup. With the violence and killings that characterised it, I said to myself, the only crime they committed was probably because they were in public office. That was what killed my interest so I said, well, let me just get my certificates."

"Every year, I was in Ghana; I will come in the middle of December and leave middle of January. So when I was finally able to do a complete draft of my thesis, I left the UK."

"I used to be part of a team on the breakfast show which happened to be the first morning show so one day, they asked me to interview presidential aspirants. After the interview, Mr Kufuor commended me and signed a copy of the NPP manifesto for me. Along the way, I had to pursue my education in the UK but my mind was always home and I don’t know whether it was because my children were young."

"I am pleased to say that even though I have parents who did not advance that much in school, they were determined to educate their children. Sometimes it was hard for them to come by money to take care of us. But one thing we could always say or boast of was that none of us was chased home to collect school fees. My father always made sure he paid our school fees. But of course, the problem was whether you had new clothes to wear or you had three square meals to eat."

"My father was educated up to middle school, and with his certificate, he got a job and started off as a bailiff but later had a job with VRA/NED in Tamale so it was from that institution he retired in 1998. He is now the Sanaahene of the Nsawkaw Traditional area. But my mum didn’t have a certificate so what she had to do was to do one job or the other so that she could, together with my father, put food on the table. Seriously, I saw her selling many things growing up and because I was the first child, I was doing most of the things with her."

"So I knew I was growing old but didn’t think I was that old to be a Council of State member; [a response she said stunned her caller] but I asked for an opportunity to think about it."

"I felt that was the best thing for me because in that year 2017, I was going to turn 57 and for some reason, I have never wanted to abrogate my contract with University of Ghana (UG). I always thought that I should stay committed because I started here as a student and never really left."

"I did graduate work and started teaching and some years into the teaching, I went for my PhD and came back so it was like my whole life has been at UG and so I wondered if I had served till I’m 57, why should I just end it instead of finishing?"

"At 57, there wasn’t much time for me to come back and serve the university again so I thought this was apparently the best option for me because since the council of state was a part-time work, I could still be teaching,” she noted. I managed to combine the council of state work with my teaching at the University of Ghana and as I speak now, I have been re-appointed to the council of state in the second term of President Akufo-Addo’s government."

"We should let the children learn about our history so that when someone speaks an untruth about the country, they can defend with the facts. History should be a compulsory subject for all. If you do not know your history, you will not know your identity and the future."

"For what does it profit a man (and in this case by "man" I do mean a couple of biological and social males) if he is considered to be a superstar but does not invest in his intellectual DNA?"

"History should be taught from the kindergarten level, adding that the current practice in some tertiary institutions where students undertook history as a course for one semester “is not enough."

"I urge parents, teachers, and religious leaders to read about the country’s history and teach their children."

"I urge the Ministry of Education to make history a compulsory subject in schools. That would enable young people to know their true identity as Ghanaians and Africans, and empower them to become responsible citizens."

"Stephan and I spent a lot of time working together online; we also held a few e-conversations as well as in-person meetings when he was in Ghana. We set very rigid timetables for ourselves, so that when we did lose momentum or got swallowed up by our day jobs, we didn't veer too far off our self-imposed schedules. We assigned ourselves concrete tasks to be completed in between our meetings—who would read what, who would follow up on what with whom, and so forth. I think one of the things that worked best for us was a mutual respect of each other's schedules, as well as ideas."

"If I might add, as this is a challenge for all journals, we also had our fair share of slow or even totally non responsive reviewers. Now that you ask us to look back, I remember a couple of senior scholars who promised, and I mean promised, us a review, and then went totally cold on us. I find this particularly disheartening because, one, everyone knows GS work is a real labor of love. But more importantly, I want to believe that most of us, especially our more senior colleagues, are invested in nurturing the next generation and not simply having their own names up in gold. For what does it profit a man (and in this case by "man" I do mean a couple of biological and social males) if he is considered to be a superstar but does not invest in his intellectual DNA?"

"This may be pie in the sky, but we should be looking for more money locally. There’s a lot of money in Africa – I’ll give one example: when the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy at the University of Ghana was putting together a sexual harassment policy in the early 2000s and needed to do some research, one of the women on our steering committee said ‘I’ll speak to my Church’. She comes back with some money for us – it’s an example we don’t normally think about. Many of the big churches are extremely wealthy, are very good at raising money. We haven’t approached them enough, with a proposal they would be comfortable with."

"Two people could be doing research on slavery, but what questions are they asking? Somebody could map out where people go, how many people moved, do a nice quantitative map, maybe say how many people in North America are related to people in Nigeria, but it wouldn’t get you to the heart of what people are feeling today, to the injustice, to the issue of reparations. If we’re crunching numbers, how about we try and calculate the cost, including the psychological cost? Who would fund that if it was linked to reparations? I suspect it wouldn’t be seen as serious science."

"But there’s also the ‘soft skills’, which we hardly ever talk about. Capacity building is always two way. Someone may come from LSE to do a workshop at the University of Ghana to build the capacity of young PhD scholars on how to write for a high impact journal, but that same LSE scholar might go into a small community with a Ghanaian scholar and learn how better to sit with them and how you speak to the chief, how you need to drink the water, even if you think ‘wow, that is going to kill me’! How to do those things so that the community will embrace you – that is mega, but it doesn’t appear anywhere."

"And this has a financial cost as well. You’re not only not recognized, but the ‘northern researcher’ then has their name on the report, puts it on their CV when they’re applying for the next research grant. As we say in Ghana, you use fish to catch fish. And the person who was the ‘research assistant’ is nowhere, they can’t claim credit, they are losing money now and in the future."

"But it doesn’t always work that way. You have researchers on the British side who are invested, sensitive, humble enough to recognize the knowledge that is in Ghana. But it means that if the person applying for the funds has to be from the UK, or Germany you have to have that respectful relationship, or the Northern partner ends up dictating the process."

"Just like with feminism, I would say step to the side or to the back. Allow the people for whom this is life and death to take the lead. We all live on this planet, need each other’s support. I’ve been supported throughout my life and career by people of different races, classes, genders. I would be lying if I said no, we can do this alone. We need support, but don’t want the white man to be the centre of the stage. Support us financially, give credit where credit is due – there’s power that comes with whiteness, and you have to acknowledge that. Say ‘you don’t need to invite me, I know this other person who would make an excellent lecturer."

"The African Studies Association of Africa: We’re still young – formed in 2013. The thinking behind this was that when African Studies became a discipline in Europe and North America, it wasn’t about centring African people’s lives; it wasn’t about how can we enable Africans to understand each other better. The agenda was how do we understand the natives so that we can better colonize them – to put it crudely, but realistically! The African Studies associations in UK, US, came out of that mould. They’ve changed a lot, but still don’t centre Africans enough – most of their members are not Africans, and the research is often about the researchers’ own interests."

"If you’re not careful, a movement can lose its edge. Other people can appropriate it for their own careers, It becomes devalued."

"All of us have capacity that can be built. We teach because we are building capacity we’re not the 'super knowers' but we do have certain experience, e.g how to do a survey or write a paper for publication and present it within 15 minutes. But the way in which capacity building is seen is very technocratic and Eurocentric in the sense that people all over the world have some of these 'hard skills', but they do them differently we may write differently, for example, but the standard for a journal article, supposedly international, is really Eurocentric."

"Step to the side or to the back. Allow the people for whom this is life and death to take the lead. We all live on this planet, need each other’s support."

"One of the best things about teaching is that you relate to very young people, much younger than you are and it helps you to also stay young. There is something about young people, which is very interesting. They come up with ideas that you haven’t even thought about and this helps to keep you young."

"Treat people with respect no matter who they are. Don’t allow your challenges to negatively affect the good relationships you have built."

"Cultivate a good work ethic. Avoid excuses and don’t disappoint those who depend on you."

"Your age or gender does not determine whether you have leadership potential. Don’t let them deter you."

"Treasure the gift of family, not just nuclear but also extended. It’s a highly beneficial network. The family unit must be nurtured and preserved."

"Everyone needs someone they can freely relate to and confide in. No matter how high you rise, preserve the bonds with people who can relate to you with sincerity."

"Take responsibility and say sorry if you must. It can heal many wounds and resolve complex situations."

"I took extra interest in guiding and nurturing students along their academic path because it was one of the things that made her fulfilled."

"Mfantsipim was an interesting experience, we were the second set of girls who went there for the sixth form because Wesley Girls then didn’t have the sixth form. Before that, there was a group of girls from Wesley Girls School who did their sixth form at St Augustine’s and then later the headmistress decided that we go to Mfantsipim."

"We had a very interesting experience and the teachers at a time didn’t even know how to handle us and the boys in the class, some of them were a bit uncomfortable and wouldn’t answer a question they were not too sure about."

"Avoid excuses; avoid blaming others and giving excuses. Face up to situations, even when they are unpleasant, and deal with them."

"Prayer; I always start my day with prayer to thank God for keeping me alive and safe. I also ask him for wisdom and strength to go through the day."

"Faith; have faith that God is in control of your life. Trust him and depend on him for courage to overcome your challenges."

"The golden rule; do unto others as you would have them do to you."

"Having a daughter is not punishment."

"Most of the lessons which influenced her successful career in academia were passed on by her father who took keen interest in her upbringing."

"Fathers should not leave the responsibility of the upbringing of the girl-child to women alone because if fathers contribute to the raising of the child, it will go a long way to benefit this country."

"You have so many years to live and so if you think that just going to school and finishing is all that you need, then you have a problem because there is so much that happens in life through everybody that if you don't learn from them, you have a serious problem. That is what molds your character, thinking process, relationship with people and so on."

"There cannot be peace when Africa governments failed to ensure free flow of information to the people it governed. Information is treated as if it is the property of few, there is the need for transparency to achieve effective sustainable peace."

"You need the help of both men and women to negotiate, and sustain peace, stressing that the country is touted as a peaceful nation for now but for how long."

"Respect for each other is one of the recipes for sustained peace and tranquility and urged all to be decorous in their utterances."

"Peace promoted investment and that effective governance was measured by the quality of its public services and the ability to deliver on its promises."

"The objective is to look at women at the work place and how they can be helped to make the maximum impact."

"When you are a house wife it is assumed you don't work, But if u calculate the amount of time that goes into cooking, cleaning, washing and taking care of children it's a lot."

"Money making is like a god possessing a priest. He never will leave you, until he has occupied you, wholly changed the order of your being, and seared you through and up and down, Then only would he eventually leave you, but nothing of you except an exhausted wreck, lying prone and wondering who are you."

"The best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it."

"People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics."

"The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics."

"But what she also came to know was that someone somewhere would always see in any kind of difference, an excuse to be mean."

"We are victims of our history and our present. They place too many obstacles in the way of love. And we cannot enjoy even our differences in peace."

"Sissie knew that she had to stop herself from crying. Why weep for them? In fact, stronger in her was the desire to ask somebody why the entire world has had to pay so much and is still paying so much for some folks' unhappiness."

"it is quite clear now that all of the peoples of the earth have not always wished one another well. Indeed we are certain now, are we not, that so many people have wished us ill. They wish us ill. They have always done. They still do."

"Clearly, she was enjoying herself to see that woman hurt. It was nothing she had desired. Nor did it seem as if she could control it, this inhuman sweet sensation to see another human being squirming. It hit her like a stone, the knowledge that there is pleasure in hurting. A strong three-dimensional pleasure, an exclusive masculine delight that is exhilarating beyond all measure. And this too is God's gift to man? She wondered."

"There are powerful forces undermining progress in Africa. But one must never underestimate the power of the people to bring about change."

"Guilt is born in the same hour with pleasure, like anything in this universe and its enemy."

"Love? Love? Love is not safe, my lady silk, love is dangerous. It is deceitfully sweet like wine from a fresh palm tree at dawn. Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need to count on human strength, and when we have to count pennies for food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves."

"Feminism is not an ‘ism’ that belongs to women only, but a way of looking at the world."

"In so many places in the world, there is an assumption that African women are the most oppressed. It is not true, we are not! At least not all."

"My regret is that we Ghanaian girls are not using the freedom we have inherited, and men are now moving in to colonise us."

"We have to get girls educated. Education that does not put them down is needed in society. We have to open up, talk and write, hold up these negative trends for discussion, analysis, abolition, and possibly banning. As far as Iʼm concerned, society needs attitudinal change."

"In a society like ours with so many adults literally having had no formal education, adult education should be dynamic so that it helps fill some of these gaps."

"Nobody could tell me writing was a man’s job."

"I started writing when I was very young. I didnʼt know at the time that I was to become a writer. I know that I read all the time. The house was full of books, and I remember rummaging through the cupboards and drawers looking for books to read. There were always books to read. I grew up in a village, a small town in the central region called “Abiadze”. My father was the chief of the village then called “Kyiakor”. He actually opened the village school with our class and some excellent teachers. My mother and another man from the village used to tell us stories every night. I think all of this prepared me to be a good writer."

"One of the issues that parents educating their wards around here unfortunately donʼt seem to be aware of is that, to help young people develop, you just have to give them positive stimulants, like interacting with them nicely, loving them, taking care of necessities, talking by word of mouth and correcting them where necessary."

"Yes I am. It is about a group of people who escaped a terrible epidemic like AIDS, and they felt the only way they could be saved would be to leave their current surroundings and build a new place somewhere else and stay there. Putting some mechanism in place will help them stay safe from the rest of the world, possibly away from other human beings. Inside that country, they have some rules and regulations that they thought could help them, including a decision to build a steel wall higher than the Great Wall of China. Since I don’t know how it ends, I cannot say how they will end it. Whether it will help them, and whether they will be saved or not."

"Well I think it is because first of all, they assume that feminism is equal to lesbianism, which it is not. Feminism is an ideological orientation, a perspective on the world and life. The other is a sexual orientation, and the two shouldn’t conflict as they belong to different spheres of human life. One is a mental state, and the other is sexual. In a paper that I worked on in the 80s, entitled African women at century’s end, I stated that everybody should be a feminist, including men. Feminism is not an ‘ism’ that belongs to women only, but a way of looking at the world. It insists that young women in this life should be given the best possible facilities for our development, health, well-being and employment, so that when we become old we can be catered for like old men are."

"I survived as a woman where men dominated because my people were supportive of women. In so many places in the world, there is an assumption that African women are the most oppressed. It is not true, we are not! At least not all. As an Akan, Fante woman, I grew up in a society where there was not much discrimination against girls. That is why I could be a writer and nobody could tell me writing was a man’s job. I had to go to University to be told by someone that I speak and do other things like a man. My regret is that we Ghanaian girls are not using the freedom we have inherited, and men are now moving in to colonise us."

"Children in this country are receiving virtually no education. Even in the so-called private schools, where they are paying so much, the children are taught extraneous things and in the end donʼt receive a good education. The teacher-student relationship is poor, affecting teaching and learning."

"Religion and religious practices interfere with education to a large extent. Remuneration and other support is poor in state-sponsored schools. The boarding school system is a major problem in senior high schools. No education system in an advanced country centres its secondary education on boarding. They brought it from England, the colonial masters. Those public boarding schools are all completely private in England today. The state schools are day schools. How can you have the teenage children of an entire country housed in boarding schools? Unless we do something about that, there will be no significant improvement in the country’s education system."

"The exclusion of women is not something that we in Ghana have inherited. In a greater part of Ghana at least, even those tribal areas that are ‘patrilinealʼ, girls are just like other children. So this business of women canʼt do this or do that is very new somehow. I didnʼt grow up in a home where I was forced to learn how to cook. Maybe my people were too strange. Nobody ever told me not to do anything because I was a girl."

"Yes, I agree! Adult education in our environment is a very necessary complement for education. Adult education as an institution has to be re-energised and reorganised by reminding the public of its importance. In a society like ours with so many adults literally having had no formal education, adult education should be dynamic so that it helps fill some of these gaps. The fact that adult education seems to have declined so drastically is also a symptom of what has happened to us as a people and as a country, both in terms of education itself and in the application of knowledge generally."

"Ghanaian women have served Ghana, They have served in our communities, our mothers, Because we don’t give them names, the home economist, and the human resource managers in our homes who are able to make magic with often very meagre resources."

"Because I like reading, I travelled in my mind and got into the world the book talked about. That gingered my power of imagination and broadened my outlook."

"The competitive spirit among the students in my alma mater encouraged me to work hard all the time."

"Don't only think of succeeding in what you are doing but excel in it and use your position to solve problem."

"Higher education is dynamic. Therefore, the kind of skills set needed by our students some two decades ago are not the same as contemporary times."

"We have a lot of qualified women in Ghana."

"I am pleased with how women are taking over male-dominated roles in society."

"There are a lot of qualified persons in the country, with women not being an exception. It is a positive thing that should be encouraged."

"Last year, there was a hike when we had a trio of female principal officers appointed or come into office at the University of Ghana. This was the first not only for Ghana, but in the world."

"I don’t believe that you would find any institution in the world where concurrently, the Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar, the Chancellor, the Chair of Counsel, the Chief Academic Officer and the Legal Counsel are all female."

"Ghana should give women the opportunity to take up prominent roles if the country wishes to experience development."

"And they have served at the continental and international level; yet, Ghana still lags behind."

"Ghana has underperformed in legislating the Affirmative Action Bill."

"This has resulted in fewer women taking higher positions, since male counterparts who have the power do not want to relinquish it."

"More than sixty percent of the older residents I interviewed in Toronto were fairly settled in their jobs in plants, factories and the service sector. They owned their own homes, and all of them had acquired Canadian citizenship and called themselves Ghanaian-Canadians. While they still maintained links with relatives in Ghana and had gone back several times to visit, they seemed fairly settled into their lives in Canada and were at the stage in their lives when their children were beginning to enter college."

"They were also the people who were active in the various community organizations that they had helped set up. Newer residents consisted of men and women some of whom had previously lived in Nigeria, Gabon or another African country. They had arrived in Canada by way of Italy, Belgium or Holland, often with no valid documents (see also Konadu-Agyemang on “step-wise migration” in this issue)."

"It was usual for a man to arrive first and to send for a spouse and children later after establishing himself, although there were also women who had arrived by themselves as autonomous migrants. The former occupations in Ghana of newer residents ranged from petty traders, artisans and schoolteachers to junior civil servants, although there were also a sprinkling of university graduates among them. However in general, newer residents were less educated than the older residents."

"Among the less educated, few desired to further their education, preferring instead to work and save their money. As they saw it, you went to school to acquire skills that would increase your earnings, but you could achieve the same results by working hard and saving your money. Almost all the newer residents I interviewed lived in rented or subsidized accommodation and eschewed home ownership."

"Women are forgotten individuals with disproportionate level of income due to poverty and deprivation."

"State's lack of attention to inequality and oriented petriachal rule as an underpinning viable that requires remedial action to provoke viable state society relations."

"We must center the voices and experiences of marginalized communities in our quest for social justice."

"Sustainable development cannot be achieved without addressing the structural inequalities that persist in our societies."

"Feminist don't only fight for their welfare but to make the entire society better, the only way to reduce the ill thoughts about feminism and it's goals is to encourage more young women to openly take part in the worthy cause."

"The struggle for land is essentially feminist."

"Anyone who declares himself/herself to be a feminist cannot fail to recognize the connection between women's rights and the right to land."

"Women's rights affect many interconnected spheres that cannot be separated. If one focuses only on one aspect and ignores the rest, women's rights are not realized."

"I believe there is a reason when we say that agriculture is increasing, but some of the most basic food security questions have not been addressed. In a country like Ghana, there are common illnesses related to food shortages and some people, at certain times of the year, do not have access to food. This is a very serious problem, particularly for children and women."

"Africa is a continent of farmers, of small producers who do not have a vast production. Which doesn't mean that this is a bad strategy, because I believe that small-scale agriculture is promising and often undervalued. For example, Ghana has become a world leader in cocoa production based on small-scale agriculture. This should teach us that small farmers can produce successfully for the market."

"But there is the mistake of deciding that it is not necessary to produce [other things] because, if you produce raw materials for export, you can earn enough money to buy food. So many farmers are not encouraged to continue producing and are not investigating how to produce, store, process and improve food security. Agriculture focuses on commodities."

"Therefore, there are many complicated issues that we have to face to ensure food sovereignty. The first step is to guarantee the access of small producers to the ground for their own production, on the ground for the market. Secondly, we have to guarantee the questions surrounding the land posession. Some groups of farmers, especially women, cannot independently acquire land for agriculture."

"We also have to consider labor concerns in agriculture. Many workers received little and came to agriculture as a transitory activity, from which they had to be released quickly. We have to solve this. And there is also a need to solve the credit problem in rural areas. Many small owners have deaths and are very common in cases of suicide caused by deaths."

"Most importantly: we have to support women in agriculture because many times they are not the only ones producing food, even though they are involved in all the productive activities that ensure the survival of the entire family."

"I believe that the land is connected with many fights. The main reason is that we are an agrarian country and the land is a crucial resource. For us, the land is identity, the land where we live is part of who we are. They may have political control."

"A system in which some people do not have full access, control or possession of the land can only be uneven. According to the law, everyone can have access to the land, but there is discrimination regarding how to access the land, which affects women, young people and immigrants as well."

"In Ghana, women produce in their communities until they get married. To live with their spouses, they leave their communities and go abroad in the new community and access to the land is mediated by their husbands. Then, when women grow old, if they don't have any men, they can lose access to the land. If they get divorced, they lose it automatically."

"Without land control, women are second-class citizens. They also deny the right to work as farmers, because it is unthinkable to be a farmer without access to land."

"There are no policies that consider women as farmers. Then women are left aside and a cycle of disadvantages is perpetuated. It is not an economic question, but a matter of citizenship and rights. Anyone who declares themselves feminist cannot fail to recognize the connection between the rights of women and the right to the land."

"For a long period of time, I paid attention to gender inequalities. Many governments over the years have made efforts to address the inequality agenda with some success. In the anticolonial struggle in Ghana, women were very active."

"Due to him, in the first years of independence there were many social and economic public policies to support women. The government advocated universal education, for example, which ensured that many children went to school."

"It was an important initiative because it opened up space for women to participate in public life. In the 60s there were many affirmative initiatives to ensure that women were represented in Parliament."

"However, some of these policies were very limited because there was talk of gender inequality, but women's rights affected many interconnected spheres that could not be separated. If one focuses solely on one aspect and ignores the rest, the rights of women will not be concreted."

"There is, for example, no system that allows women to be registered on land. But if we only do this, without paying due attention to credit and technology considerations, women will have rights to the land only nominally, but will not have them substantially. Therefore, it is very important to see that it is not just a punctual act, but a series of interconnected questions."

"There are many interesting initiatives being developed. There is a movement in several African countries to combat land grabbing. In many countries, there is a recovery of lands that were appropriated on a large scale. They are sabotaging activities, rejecting work and even sometimes destroying harvests. This is related to the idea that the government is not paying attention to the means of subsistence of these people. So they have to, basically, take care of themselves."

"For example, recently in Ghana, artisanal salt miners fought against a company that gained the right to exploit salt industrially in a large lagoon without paying attention to the people who, for thousands of years, made a living from mining artisanal on a small scale. This is one of the most recent interesting initiatives. Because of all these years of deprivation, small property owners are starting to organize themselves better in popular movements and are becoming more effective than they were."

"records of the military standard have not been completely told in light of the fact that individuals were occupied with working without archiving."

"You will have a way which you would need to design the thing, you get to a climax and you need to stay up there and let people go home with that feeling of patriotism and so on."

"Into us a child is born."

"Thank you for meeting with me today so that we can discuss the development of literary broadcasting in Ghana and your experiences of it. I am glad that you asked for us to meet here, in the home of my mother Efua Sutherland, as it was home, of course, not only for me but also for you. So we should be able to look at the trajectory of our lives since we were young around this place and how literature has shaped our lives in so many different ways. Welcome."

"Suddenly in 1951 I started…creative writing seriously."

"I suddenly saw …[w]e needed a programme to develop playwriting and…that led to… the Ghana Experimental Theatre."

"The Drama Studio came as a sudden answer to a problem I had been having, starting the theatre programme."

"Everyone’s talent should be exercised for the good of the whole of society, because [w]hat we cannot buy is the spirit of originality and endeavour which makes a people dynamic and creative."

"I shared Nkrumah’s belief in and vision for the integration of different ethnic groups on the continent, I stated in my play Foriwa (1967) through the character Labaran, “Who is a stranger anywhere in these times in whose veins the blood of this land flows?”"

"I want to be able to look up as I walk and see dignity in the place of my birth. All of us should want that."

"As the leading science and technology University in Ghana, nobody is going to be left behind as far as our delivery of quality service is concerned."

"It has become clear that a greater majority of needy students are unable to access online resources because they do not have the requisite electronic gadgets."

"The growing population of the university required creativity in the approach to handle instruction delivery."

"The University is committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive campus for everyone and that the new facility will play a crucial role in achieving this goal."

"I’m ready to make KNUST a global force."

"In order to realise this vision, it will require a collective effort from all stakeholders."

"I envisage that we could achieve this if all stakeholders would put our shoulders to the wheels by creating strategic opportunities using inspired leadership, active stakeholder participation, highly qualified and motivated human resources, research and entrepreneurship-oriented academic training."

"I acknowledge the disruption of COVID-19 to academic work and the impact on several other sectors."

"We will, therefore, roll out a project dubbed ‘Support One Needy Student with One Laptop (SONSOL PROJECT)’ in the coming days in collaboration with our philanthropists and key stakeholders."

"I hope to improve education and teaching, provide a digital vision, improve the welfare of employees and embark on an entrepreneurship drive for students."

"We will maintain our focus as Leaders in Change in the training of highly skilled 21st-century entrepreneurial graduates for social, economic and technological advancements."

"KNUST stands for relevant research, quality teaching, entrepreneurship training and provision of service to our stakeholders with or without COVID-19."

"The global higher education community including KNUST is required to pursue new strategies to deliver."

"But as our motto clearly says, ‘Nyansapo wosane no badwemma’, as an institution, we share the responsibility of thinking deeply to provide innovative solutions and to harness the opportunities inherent in the pandemic."

"I want impactful research and innovation, infrastructure development and effective community, as well as stakeholder engagement, to drive the vision."

"I hope to increase the visibility of KNUST and improve alumni and government relations."

"While people build their skills in technical abilities, it is important for them to foster a culture of digital literacy and innovation as a way of lifelong learning skills and ultimately enhancing employability."

"The world was now going digital, and everyone needed to embrace it, saying, KNUST was taking bold steps to encourage students to embrace e-space and succeed in their training."

"Students should build digital skills and literacy to enhance their employability."

"I call on industry professionals to utilise the research from the University and the academic community to transform society."

"There is need for enhanced collaboration between academia and industry, in order to stimulate development in the country."

"The problems of society are our problems. And we go through research to proffer solutions to the problems of humanity. In that sense, what we say is that, if we carry out these research, we must ensure that the research or the outcomes of this research are impacting the people for whom the research are carried out."

"This will help in making technological findings more relevant to the daily needs of society, instead of leaving them to gather dust on shelves."

"KNUST believes in constructive partnership and we cherish the kind of partnership that we enjoy with our industrial partners. And we welcome them to even help us to commercialise all these research outcomes that are coming. They should come and take it up and then take it all out there, so that it will be very beneficial to society."

"We claim we are Africans, but we respect those who speak English in our schools, describing others as local, when the language is not our birth language."

"You need to build social skills and learn to volunteer because as teachers, you will do more than teaching. Sometimes, you will have to do other things without pay."

"focusing on academic sustainability would help produce competent academic staff for universities to create sustainability in their countries and the continent."

"The country's discourses are becoming increasingly toxic, and has therefore called for a conscious effort to readjust towards positive engagements."

"That was necessary considering that the norms of respect and courtesies were crucial for impactful engagement for personal and collective national identity and growth as Ghanaians."

"National discourses full of insults were a reflection of a negative national identity, wherever we use language as a people we are constructing an identity."

"Delivering her inaugural lecture on the topic, Our identity as a people is closely linked to our discourses."

"Language had been used in different contexts by persons I describe as legitimate power holders to often manipulate others through discourses, often for selfish gains."

"I describe current national discourses as worrying, indecent, manipulative, controlling and lacking decorum. Use ‘powers’ wisely"

"Those with legitimate power, including those with academic, legal, political and media authority, must understand that power was transient, fragile and must be used wisely."

"I proposed an inclusive environment where everyone felt valued and respected by adhering to the social norms of language use."

"I believe we engage in most discourses the way we do because either we do not know the norms of language use or we have lost it as a people."

"Discourse was socially prescribed, and that it was important for all to understand the context and the people, and be decorous in the use of language."

"The use of indecent language affected even Ghana’s Parliament, I cited a research by me and another which indicated that 73 unsavoury comments, including some offensive, abusive and insulting language were used in Parliament between 2005 and 2018."

"The professor of language said it had gone so bad that the Speaker himself had to use "unparliamentary" language to address unparliamentary comments."

"I also expressed worry that Ghanaians had negative perceptions about our language, it was obvious that as a country we were headed towards an ethno-linguistic identity crisis."

"Studies indicated that some Ghanaian students did not speak even one Ghanaian language, explaining that schooling had a way of making people speak English to ignore and look down on their language."

"Perhaps that is why we have an ethno-linguistic crisis looming."

"Language had been used to emphasise the "us" versus "them" which painted others negatively and “ourselves positively”, a situation which was impacting negatively on national cohesion and development."

"I call for respect for all through the use of language."

"Students should be confident irrespective of their humble beginnings especially those who attended public schools."

"The Human Library is a library of people where readers can borrow human beings serving as open books and have conversations with them tapping into their experiences."

"It is important for them to be confident and not feel intimidated because of your backgrounds."

"I attended public schools yet I dared to challenge myself to do my utmost without considering where I was coming from and the private schools my mates attended."

"I encourage the students to exude traits of commitment, diligence, respect, perseverance, curiosity, and responsibility to reach their desired peaks in life."

"Becoming a teacher was not my primary option for a profession growing up. However, I decided to work towards reaching the apex of the profession when I found herself at the Komenda College of Education."

"I told myself if I was going to become a teacher, I would push till I reached the top. So, on my journey, I became the head of the Department of English, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, the Provost of the College of Humanities and Legal Studies, and the first female Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University."

"Universities do not train students to fit into specific jobs but produce well-rounded critical thinkers who can assume different positions."

"Universities give universal training for you to fit into different roles except for specific professions like medicine. You are being trained to fit into different positions and roles that may present themselves to you after school."

"In the current dispensation that the University of Cape Coast is championing the entrepreneurship drive, students need to add value to themselves by gaining both hard and soft skills necessary to ensure their holistic moulding into responsible citizens."

"I reiterated the need for the students to aim at becoming economically independent, especially women, before venturing into life-long commitments such as marriage."

"It has proven that if you learn your mother tongue you get to know the basic tenets of the Ghanaian culture which frowns on engaging in open insults or character assassination, something we see in our political space now."

"It is common to see some politicians, presenters and other dignitaries trading insults on air, forgetting that children are equally listening and might pick the indecent Twi Language spoken on air."

"A lot of people lacked the basic tenets of the indigenous language which teaches people not to engage in insults, especially on a public platform. That, had been the main cause of the phenomenon in the country."

"We have allowed the infiltration of alien cultures and that is destroying ours which frowns on insults. So children lack a deep appreciation of the local language, when to speak, how to speak it and the occasion to present it."

"While learning the local language children will get to know about etiquettes, politeness, speeches, taboo expressions, avoidance expressions and idioms. They will know these basic tenets of public speaking, all of which are embedded in the indigenous language."

"They were only interested in passing derogatory remarks against their political opponents as though they were enemies."

"Because we have taken our language and culture for granted, parents don’t speak and teach much of their indigenous languages embedded in our culture with their children."

"It has become so obvious that if you can insult people very well, you are awarded a position when your government comes to power, and that is bad."

"Language was powerful and delicate — it can make and unmake a person, it can break a nation — it was language that led to the Rwandan genocide."

"Because we are failing to teach our children, a lot of them lack wisdom which leads to the lack of maturity among many of the youth and that translates into our politics."

"Politicians mostly speak their indigenous languages during campaigns. If you speak people’s language, they are able to easily identify or flow with you."

"We can start from somewhere by making Ghanaian languages compulsory subjects from the kindergarten (KG) to the senior high school (SHS) level."

"I urged the media not to give their platforms to politically exposed individuals to spew insults at their political opponents, a situation she said could lead to tensions in the country."

"It was everybody’s responsibility to guard against insulting comments by politicians during their campaigns."

"I was concerned with the analysis of word meanings and relations between them. All quotes in the English Language had to be translated to Twi to mean exactly what the quote means. Even if it is a terminology in English, you have to get the exact Akan word, not just nearest in meaning."

"I said I will also read news when I grow up but I will do it in Twi, and everybody in the living room burst out laughing. My dad asked me if I had ever seen anyone reading in Twi on radio or TV. I closed the chapter because indeed in those days, there were just a few Akan-speaking FM stations, unlike today."

"The first day I came on TV I didn’t inform my parents but they saw me and were all thrilled, and my dad called me and said I was indeed a go-getter."

"There are things that are known to be taboos but are mentioned anyhow on radio by some of these Twi presenters on both TV and radio."

"Respect is important and something that is very much needed in society, but has been constructed by some to mean submission and self-denial, especially in regard to young women."

"Stories allow us to peek into the lives of others, and they also allow us to see ourselves."

"I use fiction to teach in my social science courses and I am always keen to explore the issues that I work on in my research."

"It takes strength to walk away from someone you love."

"Please, put love aside and be practical. Love will not put food on the table; it won’t hold you at night."

"A person who talks so freely about her own life will talk just as freely about yours."

"If there was one thing I agreed with my mother on, it was that one could never be sure about a person’s intentions, no matter how kind that person seemed."

"Not everyone who smiles with you wishes you well."

"I have to fight for what I want, for what's mine."

"I knew that even though we were surrounded by a large family, we had nobody."

"How can I be a good wife with no husband by my side?"

"Marriage shouldn’t be a never-ending competition where you spend your life fighting to be seen and chosen."

"I said to love with your head but I’m also the first person to tell you that it is hard to live like that. It is brutal and it eats at you every day and leaves you empty."

"I’ve been impacted by many books, but one that has profoundly impacted me as a writer is Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. After reading it as a teenager, I began to think seriously about how I could use words to create images and to effectively show the reader what I was thinking. Before then, my focus had been on producing fiction to entertain myself."

"I’m very interested in presenting the truth of people who are not centered in mainstream narratives. But I’m also fascinated by how we construct our version of truth, by how two people can have the same experience and not only describe it differently but also believe that their version is the only truth. The novel I’m currently working on excavates this phenomenon."

"In the social sciences, we know. . . that our identities matter for our research: They matter for what we research, how we conduct our research, and how we write our findings. In the same way, I think our identities matter for the stories we tell and how we tell them."

"Before I begin writing a book, I spend months—and sometimes years—thinking about characters and plot. In fact, I like to think that a lot of my writing happens in my head and I spend a great deal of time with characters and their stories in my thoughts, before I write anything down. But because I also work on multiple research projects, on which I also publish—so far, a book and several academic journal articles—I tend to switch back and forth between thinking about fiction and nonfiction. Therefore, there are long periods when I don’t focus on fiction."

"However, when I’m able to think and write about fiction, I very much enjoy it. I began writing fiction for myself when I was about 10 years old, because I ran out of books to read. I discovered that I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed reading. Therefore, I think the pleasure I get out of writing fiction is what enables me to maintain my momentum and interest—and is the reason I’ve been writing for almost 30 years, even though most of what I’ve written has not been read by anyone."

"Stories serve so many purposes. We need them because they document our truths, they magnify our dreams, they teach, they entertain, they inspire."

"My identify plays a huge role in my writing. I’m Black, Ghanaian, and a woman, and one of the reasons I wrote His Only Wife was that I was hungry for stories of Black women just living their lives and doing regular things. In the social sciences, we know—although some continue to resist this truth—that our identities matter for our research: They matter for what we research, how we conduct our research, and how we write our findings. In the same way, I think our identities matter for the stories we tell and how we tell them."

"An important role that writers can play is in documenting resistance movements. This can ensure visibility, facilitate recognition, and bring marginalized voices to the center."

"The transition probably happened when I was working on my doctoral dissertation. Around that time, I started sending out short stories. Short stories were more manageable because, in some ways, submitting them was similar to submitting academic research articles. So I think it was easy for me to do. But I remember going online, because I didn't know much about publishing or people in publishing - I only knew one person who was a writer before I published my book. I went on Google and searched, ‘how do you publish a book?’ and the steps just seemed so overwhelming."

"You need connections, you need to have a certain kind of training, you need an agent, and if you send your work to an agent, it ends up in a slush pile. It was all too much. So I never sent out a book manuscript - my plan was that I would look into publishing my books when I retired from academia. I just figured that I would keep writing, then when I was 65 or 70, I would try to get published. That was the plan."

"So my books never end up being the books that I planned. His Only Wife was a very different story when I started writing it. I was returning to Ghana and His Only Wife started off with a main character who in some ways shared some similarities with my own life - someone living in the US and coming back to Ghana after graduate school. I'm sure you can see that Afi in His Only Wife is not that person, so that shows you how much my writing changes once I begin writing."

"But when I'm thinking about starting a book, I want in those first few pages for the reader to get a good sense of who the main characters are, but also a good sense of the tension or conflict that is going to propel the book forward. So in those first few pages or the first chapter, by the time you get to the end of that chapter, you have a good sense of the characters, and you have a good sense of what is driving them, and what is driving the story. That's what I aim for."

"Tell the story you want to tell. It's a very simple message but it's really affected my writing in a positive way. I hadn't read any book on Ghana like His Only Wife so I couldn't look at anyone's trajectory of success and say ‘this person wrote a book like this so if I write it, I will have a similar response’. I just knew that this was the story I wanted to tell. You have to believe in the story and trust the book will find its readers and readers will find the book."

"We don’t need to behave as if all is well when in actual fact we’re not too sure about where the money is going to come for sustainability so it is important in as much as we embrace it as a good policy that has to be supported."

"there is a need to have an alignment between the sense of identity of the leader and that of the followers, for leadership to achieve its goals."

"Don’t allow negative thoughts from yourself or others, your ethnicity, location, environment or gender be a limitation on what you can achieve."

"I am striving to improve public knowledge on the dangers associated with pollution by toxic substances (heavy metals, aromatic hydrocarbon, and so on) by determining them in environmental samples and evaluating the exposure and risk associated with them."

"My greatest scientific inspiration is Marie Skłodowska Curie. She is the embodiment of both femininity and scientific excellence. Not only did she depart from the traditional women’s roles of her time, but she went on to become one of the world’s most renowned scientists. To date she remains the only person to have won a Nobel Prize in two academic disciplines – namely, physics and chemistry."

"Some think that all scientists in Africa do mediocre research or lack appropriate equipment. There is also a general lack of trust in data generated in Africa; I’ve witnessed this myself in the time taken to review manuscripts and the comments I’ve received when I was studying for my PhD in Europe versus the early years following my return to Africa. Now I’ve established credibility in the field, I don’t seem to encounter these biases as much."

"I’d travel to Jupiter in the far future – firstly because I love the sound of its name, secondly because of its massive nature (it could accommodate around 300 times Earth’s current population), and thirdly because it is beautiful. I see a future where science has discovered ways of adapting to life on Jupiter – as well as methods to travel there more quickly. That way I could take my summer vacation from my earthly home in Kumasi in Ghana to travel to Jupiter for sightseeing and relaxation..."

"A natural response to my curious mind and quest to know."

"I was always a curious child and used to ask a lot of questions about everything – from why birds sing and fly, to why it gets dark at night. I always wanted to understand how things came into existence. I was particularly active in science experiments in the primary school, and that led me to choose science for my secondary education and later university education. I guess it was a natural response to my curious mind and quest to know!"

"I wanted to experience new people and culture, and in Bergen I was in an environment where I had access to state-of-the-art equipment for my research. The other key benefits were that the programme was in English – and was fully funded. It was a great experience."

"I will say the main difficulty is around funding, which is very limited. At my university, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, there is funding between USD2000 and 5000 to compete for annually and there is no national research fund, so most funded projects are supported by external donors."

"Personally, I am looking forward to finding collaborators to help fund my research, and also to continue in science diplomacy, outreach and mentorship. I also look forward to working in a Science Policy Space in order to contribute to research in the field and also report on my experiences gathered along the way."

"First of all, Ghana is where I feel most at home; I grew up here. Secondly, there are a lot of scientists in the global North and therefore the global South needs equally credible scientists to stay, work and help solve their peculiar problems which research can address. I also serve as a mentor and role model to younger people who aspire to be scientists in future. An ambition like that looks more achievable or real when your role model looks like you and speaks like you!"

"Joy, pride and gratitude all in one pot. Its a litmus test to all my professional engagements and gives me the zeal to do more. This award is a huge endorsement of my scientific and professional endeavours. It is definitely going to further increase my visibility and offer more opportunities for growth and impact of my causes, including research on environmental contamination, mentorship and outreach."

"Born to parents who are both educators, my siblings and I were surrounded by books and that inculcated in us an interest in reading, writing and learning very early. Growing up in a family of eight taught me the need for peaceful coexistence, free sharing of my gifts, caring for younger siblings and benefiting from the care of older siblings."

"Also growing up in the early 1980s, when Ghana experienced serious economic decline, I learned gratitude for what I have, judicious use of resources and the need to give back to society, especially the underserved. These tenets that I picked from my family’s value system have been part of me throughout my teen years up to today."

"Women form the majority of operators in the small business sector, but their educational levels and managerial experiences are lower than those of their male counterparts."

"There is growing confidence among researchers in the ability of small businesses to play a vital role in economic development. This role is manifested through their contribution to innovation, job creation, and income generation. In transitional economies such as Ghana, small businesses comprise about 90 per cent of all registered enterprises and are recognised as a crucial and integral component of economic development policies aimed at sustained poverty reduction."

"The ability of the small business sector to contribute to economic development is influenced by the performance of individual firms, which is in turn influenced by their strategic capabilities. Strategic capabilities are determined by the owner-manager's personality and demographic and environmental characteristics. Owner-managers' personality characteristics originate from the prevailing cultural and socialisation processes to which they are exposed."

"In Ghana, women form the majority of operators in the small business sector, but their educational levels and managerial experiences are lower than those of their male counterparts. There are also gender differences in the socialisation of girls and boys in Ghana. It is expected that these differences in personality and demographics between men and women affect their strategic capabilities, and ultimately the performance of their businesses. This study accordingly examines the direct and indirect effects of gender on owner-managers' characteristics, strategic capabilities, and performance of small retail firms in Ghana."

"A multi-method approach employing both quantitative and qualitative research methodology was utilised. Face-to-face interviews using structured questionnaires were employed to collect information from 674 owner-managers of small retail shops in the Accra Metropolis in Ghana. In all, 600 useable responses were obtained. In addition, focus group discussions were used to support the findings obtained from face-to-face interviews on issues relevant to business success."

"Structural equation modelling using partial least squares was employed to examine the relationships between gender, owner-managers characteristics, strategic capabilities, and firm performance. Results revealed that the gender of the owner-manager has a direct influence on performance, firm resources, business owner's skills, personal values, business experience, and education. In addition, a partial influence was observed for business strategies, but not for owner-manager's age."

"Graduate unemployment was a national security issue, and the country could fall on entrepreneurship to rescue the situation."

"I observed that entrepreneurs were faced with a plethora of challenges, including limited access to finance, inadequate infrastructure, skill gap, inadequate human resources like mentors and coaches and a limited access to market."

"They produce the products and sometimes they don’t even know where to sell it. We have the African Continental Free Trade Area. Can we support them to leverage it?"

"I call for the provision of infrastructure such as roads and electricity as well as providing the youth with managerial and entrepreneurial skills to thrive."

"I call for a genuine financial support programme to give support to feasible and credible businesses or ideas and encouraged people to save and partake in group funding before relying on other sources."

"Even though there are interventions like MASLOC and NEIP, I believe that the entrepreneurs and the small enterprises will also have to start something and save on their own to supplement what other organisations give them."

"There are a lot of regulations they have to comply with. They are trying to make ends meet and make their businesses grow and so it sometimes becomes even difficult for them to remember all these regulatory regimes they have to comply with."

"That a more friendly regulatory regime will expedite the formalisation of the economy and make it easier to effectively formulate and implement interventions for the industry."

"I counsel Ghanaian youths to explore the rich opportunities in entrepreneurship to fight unemployment, that is the only solution to the graduate unemployment situation in the country."

"Remember I always say that if we have a lot of graduate unemployment, it is a national security issue. And therefore, entrepreneurship can come to the rescue."

"High school students would have to acquire skills in military training, agricultural training, digital literacy, entrepreneurship training, among others to succeed in the model for entrepreneurship training."

"I have worked on a lot of projects aimed at fostering an entrepreneurial mindset in students of the UCC, including university wide entrepreneurship course, Business incubator, among others."

"I admitted that the entrepreneurship sector was fraught with problems and recommend the creation of specialised agencies, financial support programmes, capacity-building initiatives, and policy reforms, to revamp the sector."

"I call on government to put in place sustainable policies targeted at small businesses in the country to help them grow."

"Life is full of highs and lows; it’s a normal part of being alive."

"STEM is an excellent foundation. Don’t focus so much on the details at the beginning, rather about the skills you are acquiring in the process; logical thinking, critical thinking, analytical skills."

"I Don’t Say No To Help."

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

"Ghanaians need to ditch mediocrity. I have observed that people take on responsibilities, looking for recognition, glory and remuneration, but never think about the work or the meaning of the commitment they have made."

"In order to get to the point where you can actually contribute meaningfully to decision-making, you should have invested in yourself."

"I have to give a disclaimer to say that I have not been explicitly intimidated or discouraged; that’s probably because of my attitude, haha. I have chosen to be so focused on my work that I can’t see certain distractions."

"If you follow my path you will see that I have been a pioneer in most of things that I do. So when I start a project, I have a vision for it. And as you can imagine, I work with teams because I enjoy maximising the synergy that comes from individuals from different backgrounds. When assembling my teams, I give people chances, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt but I have unfortunately been disappointed in the past. I have worked with people who haven’t understood my vision sometimes, there are some who have worked hard to undermine my abilities. I don’t know if this has been because I was young or a woman!"

"Truthfully, I have seen certain reactions because I am female. For example, a student comes to me with these amazing compliments about my work, the way I inspire them and how they are honoured to have me as their head of department. Only problem is they can’t tell their parents that their head of department is a woman! Their father will question how serious that engineering department is!"

"There are also certain unwritten but unrealistic expectations. Like if you are a female head of department then you are expected to be motherly. So your review of whether you are doing a good job depends on your ability to be motherly in addition to doing the job described for you in your appointment letter."

"I have also had issues with my relationship! I was married, I am now divorced. Maybe part of it is about me being too focused and doing certain things which may not necessarily be healthy for a relationship."

"Overall, my idea has been to rise above all this! You know, once I know what my vision is, I tend to push all the negativity out of my way and keep moving forward. I choose to see my challenges as a normal part of life; something to learn from and make my way forward."

"The good thing is that I had been trained to be independent – one of the things I thank my parents for – so leaving home for the UK wasn’t such a challenge for me. But now adjusting to a new environment – winter time for example – was the problem. I had also been used to a certain way of teaching, you know the African way, haha! We don’t ask questions because whatever the teacher tells us is the solid truth."

"Now here I was in a class full of interactions between teachers and students. In this school critical thinking was a requirement, we were supposed to have discussions on some of the most controversial topics. I had to find ways of forming an opinion and engage in the discussions because I took the idea serious that I was representing my country! My presence there had to matter."

"I remember for the first time in a science class I had a chance to design my own experiment as opposed to following instructions from a teacher. All this was challenging to me at first but I adjusted pretty well. By the time I was leaving, my thinking was completely different from what it was when I had just joined."

"Haha, you know I recently got a chance to speak to a group of students who invited me to their session and my title was about sustainable success. I asked them what they considered successful. Winnie, I have received many awards and many people know me for the awards but all my awards have been received because of things I did for other people; I have never received an award for anything I have done for myself! So to me success is about your contribution to others; the sacrifices you make to make life better for others."

"In 2010 I received the best teacher award for sciences at my university – University of Ghana. This award was for the work I had done to help establish engineering plus the activities I do in my classes. Each of my classes has a course project because I want to change the narrative from just theoretical exposure in class to something more practical for my students. So my students know me for asking them to look for problems in their societies and come to class with them. They know that I don’t have all the solutions but I have a lot of experience; so if your solution is not feasible, I have the ability to point that out and give you suggestions on how to make it work."

"Since 2017, I have been receiving all kinds of awards every year, haha. In 2017 itself I received the Impact Africa Summit award for education in Ghana; I am the Laureate for Ghana in education. It again has to do with my attitude towards promoting education in Ghana."

"I am also the host for a science quiz program called the National Science and Math Quiz, for secondary schools in Ghana. You will be amazed at what happens in this program, haha. So this is a month-long televised Science competition where all schools come together to find out who wins for that year. The whole country comes to a stand-still, everybody is watching because everyone is affiliated in one way or another to a school. My purpose here is to make people understand that you don’t have to be a science student to enjoy sciences. The applications of science are reachable and everywhere around us."

"In 2011, I was a fellow of the International Women’s Forum Leadership program – the leadership foundation. I guess my application for this was strong because some of the activities I have done in education. This allowed me to go back to school – Harvard Business School and INSEAD, executive education programs. This was another opportunity for me to build my leadership skills and strengthen my ability to do the things I have been able to do and are still doing."

"I also love travelling. Before the pandemic, I would get a chance, maybe once a year, to visit a place I have never been to. Even my conferences were opportunities to explore, haha."

"I like reading, a lot! I read anything, and everything. I also like listening to classical music. I find joy in catching up with my friends and classmates from all over the world."

"I would also like to tell this young girl that she is not alone; sometimes we feel like we are isolated, especially on this STEM journey but no, there is support out there. There are people who have been where you are, find a mentor; someone who has been where you want to reach and can speak positively into your life."

"The opportunity to go elsewhere to see how things are done elsewhere and to apply that knowledge in our context is very, very important. It gives you a global worldview when you go abroad to study but yes they must come back to help"

"Take every experience as a learning process and make a conscious effort to read widely because the world has become so globalised, it would be disastrous if we failed to recognize that. And in all these, we should pray to God for inspiration."

"To get my ideas working, I need to let them understand what I stand for, and intend doing for them: even when they are not pleased with the way I do things. I have to live by examples."

"I gained admission to the Wesley Girls High School (WeyGeyHey) Cape Coast, and pursued both my Ordinary (O) and Advanced (A) Levels and the University of Ghana Medical School subsequently."

"I was an unusually reserved young lady, for which I was teased by friends, I shrugged off that trait later, to the surprise of many. She became the Assistant Girls Prefect at Wesley Girls, in her final year."

"However, the icy hands of death took away her father, in her first year at the Medical School in 1971. This was a catastrophic and traumatic experience."

"His death affected my academic performance that semester. I pulled myself together after his burial, and told myself – I will not fail."

"I intend to transform Korle Bu into a centre of excellence where everybody will receive equal services from our medical staff. Patients will be received with open arms irrespective of the class or status, just as is done in the advanced countries."

"I want to be a team player, and hopes to get everybody working with me, and to encourage them to do things right, and at the right time; no matter how difficult."

"Sometimes tough, especially when I wants something done. Most of the people who I have worked with understand me."

"Do not procrastinate. I believe the youth of today have numerous opportunities which they must explore but is worried that many are not patient."

"I lamented how quickly they want to amass wealth for themselves, disregarding wealth of experiences of the elderly and appreciating the need for hard work to achieve laurels."

"Working as a Paedi­atric Surgeon was God’s plan for my life because l was told by my par­ents that at the age of four, l had indicated l would become a paediatric surgeon. It is so surprising that l knew nothing about it so l inferred that it was God who had directed my thoughts."

"It was an arduous task working continuously as a paediatric surgeon with no time to rest. Later, she had to recruit more doctors and nurses to assist her in the department and ensured that the staff were exposed to some of the best practices outside the country."

"I have never wavered going through all the disciplines in medicine."

"In paediatric surgery, a child comes to the hospital with a problem and when you operate on the child or you correct the problem, the next day the child is ready to go and play football. In this situation, the anxious parents would like to find out wheth­er the child should be allowed to play or not."

"There was no regret working as a Paediatric Surgeon because I attached professionalism to my work and the relief given to par­ents and their sick children had provided me a lot of satisfaction. Additionally, working with my hands to see a little child get better was a wonderful activity which she took delight in."

"The Paediatric Surgery Depart­ment took care of newborn babies up to 13 years."

"The challenges in the department included the clinical condition the patient was identified with, you could diagnose the condition and prescribe medication for the patient, but the parents could not purchase the medicine, and having completed a nice job, the post-operative man­agement of the case could be problematic because the parents could not provide the needed items."

"I intimat­ed that there were occasions I had to use my money in support of needy children on admission in the hospital, and this situation had occasioned the establishment of a Special Fund in the department in support of needy children."

"One of my sons had expressed concern that there were many students who had applied to the medical schools in Ghana with good grades but could not gain admission to the public medical schools because of the cut-off point, so he asked why couldn’t the family establish a school to cater for some of these students."

"My family decid­ed to manage the academic part of the university while other stakeholders provide the financial part. That was the vision to get stakehold­ers who would provide the needed funds for this laudable project, hence the coming into being of the Accra Col­lege of Medicine."

"By the grace of God, the school has graduated 28 medical doctors from three batches. The main thing is about their work ethics and high character."

"I urged Ghanaians to de­sist from telling lies and do what they would like to do if nobody was watching them."

"I think all cultural output is a form of narrative. Somebody once said that culture is the sum total of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. So, there's a very deep need to say something, to impart something. In these questions of colony, identity, territory, and history, there is a sense amongst many black practitioners that we've never had the space to tell our own stories, and part of the act of recuperating what has been lost is the desire to speak. In some senses, the Biennale has been a healing experience, a kind of closing over of a wound, of a void."

"I don't expect this exhibition to teach anybody anything, I don't think it's a didactic exhibition. That's not to say that people won't learn something from it. But I don't want any of the participants to be the ones dictating what the lesson is. It should be read from it. What they have done is put out an authentic, genuine, sometimes vulnerable story. What happens to that story is somehow beyond their control. What I hope that the audience takes from it is a kind of openness where previously, there might have been a closeness, or an unwillingness to engage with the other, not on our terms, but on their terms."

"It is an opportunity to talk to the rest of the world about Africa, and also to talk to Africa from here (Venice). The ability to be several things at once — traditional and modern, African and global, colonized and independent — is a strong thread running through the continent and the Diaspora. We’re used to having to think about resources, about switching on a light with no guarantee of electricity. We’re able to grapple with change. That capacity to overcome, to negotiate, to navigate ones’ surroundings is going to take center stage."

"When you are African, you speak to a world that has an existing view of who and what you are. You walk with this kind of label. So for me, the Biennale was an opportunity to both talk about the label, to confront it in a way, but to also show underneath how similar we are."

"I’ve always thought of ‘race’ as a powerfully creative category of exploration and expression. I was fed up trying to find a way to talk about identity, race and Africa in architecture that wasn’t only about poverty and ‘informality,’ a word I loathe."

"There’s something about the training of an architect that’s particularly suited to our time: it’s about bringing disparate pieces of information together in a framework. Architecture is about more than building buildings."

"Architects have the power to change the culture of how we build and how we think about resources."

"No job is worth one’s life."

"Succession is something you make, by constructing opportunities."

"Africa's unique context, which is both richly challenging and richly creative, means it's a powerful place from which to examine the issues that will dominate the next century – climate change, societal change, demographic change, new forms of governance, explosive urbanity."

"All futures are uncertain. We do our best to anticipate the future."

"The dominant voice has historically been a singular, exclusive voice, whose reach and power ignores huge swathes of humanity — financially, creatively, conceptually — as though we have been listening and speaking in one tongue only."

"Change is the one thing that everybody hollers for and longs for, but when it actually arrives, most people don't want it. It's a complex thing."

"You have to find yourself. When you meet him again, you have to know who you are. He's finding out who he is."

"The glow of delicioous tension coudn't be faked, not at any price. So when you leave, that's when you realise you've been living in a lie."

"How could you teach someone to survive? You pointed them in the right direction and hoped they'd swim, not sink. Waving, not drowning. There are more important things in life than individual happiness. It was an easy trap to fall into, mistaking a lack of self-direction for an expression of love."

"She would love it. Just as he loved her. He paused for a second, his fingers touching the door handle. He was in love. The realisation came to him quite suddenly."

"Guilt, Ameline discovered, was a terrible, unruly think, like toothache - dull nagging, persistent, never far from attention. Just when you got used to its rumbling, ruminating presence, it would lash out, stike you down, stio you dead in your tracks. The worst thing was, it was entirely unpredictable."

"It wasn't sealed - she opened the flap. Inside was a cheque for a thousand dollars. Made out to her. From Daniel. It was a colossal slap in the face."

"She (Lesley) is using the Biennale as a platform to extend the work she has been doing for decades. Lesley is able to set the stage for others and expose the network that for some of us has always been there."

"Religious chauvinism presupposes a monopoly of truth and of God and so undercuts the roots of our common humanity in a way that prevents our acting humanely toward the other."

"Sharing spirituality across religious boundaries will make us neighbours who honour each other's specificities while at the same time seeking mutual caring and sharing and learning together."

"Non-food inflation rate of 24.1 percent is about four times as high as the food inflation rate of 5.8 percent."

"The country’s unadjusted GDP growth decelerated to 5.3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, sharply down from a revised 10.8 percent in the same period last year."

"But despite contraction in several sectors, some as a result of the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the 2014 growth forecast, while down on 2013, still puts Ghana well above the IMF forecast for sub-Saharan African growth of 5.1 percent. Ghana, which exports gold, oil and cocoa, has been hard hit in the hospitality sector."

"Rural men and women lack decent work opportunities. Women in particular face greater difficulties in transforming their labour into more productive employment activities and their paid work into higher and more secured incomes."

"She said inadequate data on gender sensitive indicators had been a serious impediment to understanding the phenomenon, making informed policy decisions which would necessitate the drive to improve statistical systems and ensure the full mainstreaming of gender into data production, analysis and dissemination."

"Efforts to promote gender equity in labour markets and income generating activities as well as the support for decent employment initiatives in rural areas were hampered by the lack of comprehensive information on the multiple dimensions of social and gender inequalities."

"There was the need to introduce innovative programmes that would focus on rural areas and farming communities for the rural folks to get access to credit and savings, affordable public and private mechanisms which could provide access to land, markets, seeds, fertilisers and machinery."

"I urge policy makers to recognise women’s high participation in non-agricultural self-employment activities as an opportunity to increase rural employment and access to economic resources in strengthening a collective action especially within women groups."

"In the end, life takes you where you want to be. Just don’t make fear-based decisions. Have the confidence in yourself to overcome a more challenging path."

"I am sharing the good word of IP, because by sharing the knowledge, I prevent myself from forgetting it."

"It is an access issue that limits the availability of such key tools for research in Ghana, and the COVID-19 pandemic made the process of getting consumables and equipment much worse. We had zero access and our research came to a standstill."

"To that little girl who is me, I say value your uniqueness and be kind to yourself. Be confident in who you are, never doubt and never stop dreaming. That which is meant for you will find you!"

"The world will make room for us."

"Sometimes it’s important to hold your mentee’s hand and guide them towards opportunities they never knew existed."

"God has been good. I didn’t even know about this feat. And now everybody is celebrating me. And I’m very grateful to all my loved ones. It was hard to combine a lot of this with my academic work and my colleagues were supportive and understood me"

"She’s been very useful to the chapter and we are happy to celebrate her. She has a brilliant way of critiquing. She is down-to-earth, humble, ready-to-learn and affable. For us she is an icon, so we cherish her so much."

"She's one of the great Professors AERC gave me. Congratulations, Prof. Indeed, I am proud to be one of your Monetary Economics students"

"Currently, there is no scientific information on mother-daughter physical activity programs in African-Americans"

"We are trying to recruit moms and daughters now because we have to get their baseline measures"

"Being an African-American woman, I am very passionate about improving the levels of our African-American children. For this program we are defining 'mother' as the primary female role model living with the girl"

"I am also trying to partner up with local organizations to get food donations so that we can provide dinner for mom and daughter, so that mom does not have to go home after the program to make dinner."

"The reason we are dividing it into two years is that we do not have the resources to complete the entire sample in one year."

"Increasing physical activity has been shown to improve children's academic performance, how they feel, their classroom behavior, and their risk of obesity and diabetes."

"The training of a nurse or midwife is more skills-based, and so they are trained to care, not to write papers or research. But I decided that, once I found myself in academia, I needed to do what it would take to be a rounded academic – not only a clinical nurse, but to be able to have that tag of an academic."

"Once you know you are competent, you know you are qualified, and you get appointed, it goes to substantiate the fact that what you have worked for has come to light."

"Leadership positions have been reserved for men. After becoming the fourth woman vice-chancellor in the country, I saw it as a good sign that the world is ready to accept the leadership of women and also, being young, in terms of age, it also tells me that young people can also see a future – that they don’t need to wait until they are old before being given the opportunity."

"It also tells me that, if you want something, you must carve the path for what you want. You don’t get there before trying to put things in order."

"You must start demonstrating competence, quality, consistency over the years. I feel that, with this appointment, it shows that no matter your background, you can achieve your dream. I come from a poor background"

". I have also used mentors from all over the globe that I followed over the years to build myself. Learning from these people has helped me to navigate my space."

"To become a successful marine scientist in Africa, you must be prepared to work harder than you would in other fields. Make no room for naysayers! Look beyond boundaries, oceanography is a global science! You may not be recognized or even relevant to people at the onset of your career in your country, but your work may attract international attention."

"International recognition will lead to national recognition. Giving up due to a lack of capacity and infrastructure should not be in your books. Study your system to understand the barriers to progress and work hard to develop skills that can help you break those barriers and achieve success."

"I have always loved nature, especially the marine world! However, I come from a region where marine science was not recognized as a career promising field. Therefore, to me, that passion for water could become a lifelong hobby while I pursue an academic programme that guarantees a job."

"My long-term goal is to build resilience in oyster fisheries in the sub-region to enhance the livelihoods of artisanal communities while enhancing other ecological benefits such as water quality and biodiversity."

"I promised myself to excel in my field and demonstrate to the several young students I teach and mentor that aside medicine, there are several STEM fields such as oceanography that are promising in Africa if one looks beyond boundaries"

"As an early-career scientist, I faced significant challenges, particularly the lack of infrastructure for advanced research. Before ARISE, I often had to ship samples abroad for analysis, a process fraught with delays and high costs. This hampered my ability to conduct timely and impactful research."

"In 2020, my career took a transformative turn when I became one of the principal investigators supported by ARISE. The programme provided funding that allowed me to establish Ghana’s first isotope ratio mass spectrometer laboratory—a groundbreaking achievement for marine science in the region. This state-of-the-art facility has enabled me to conduct advanced research, such as reconstructing climate history and assessing human impacts on marine ecosystems."

"ARISE’s investment did not stop at infrastructure. It provided the resources and mentorship needed to scale my research and collaborate with peers across Africa. Today, my lab serves as a hub for researchers from Ghana and neighbouring countries like Nigeria, fostering regional collaboration and advancing marine science on the continent."

"With ARISE support, I have advanced research into the ecological and human health risks of heavy metal pollution in Ghana’s coastal waters. My work has informed policy discussions on environmental protection and sustainable development."

"My lab has become a regional resource, hosting researchers and fostering partnerships with institutions across Africa. This collaborative approach is key to addressing shared challenges such as marine pollution, food security, and climate adaptation."

"It's shocking that around 800 women still die from preventable pregnancy-related causes every day and that these numbers have not moved significantly for a decade. Abortion care remains a neglected issue. Almost half of the 73 million induced abortions carried out each year are unsafe, putting women at risk of infection and death and less than half of all countries provide people with safe abortion care services. Programs to deliver comprehensive contraceptive services face bureaucratic and staffing bottlenecks that need to be overcome."

"An ongoing lack of access means that many women in low- and middle-income countries cannot be confident of receiving safe, respectful care when pregnant and giving birth. One million sexually transmitted infections are acquired every day. Most adolescents and young people do not receive comprehensive sexuality education, a known way to set them up for a healthy relationship. We still dismiss menstrual disorders and severe dysmenorrhoea as ‘normal’ for women, resulting in significant loss of quality of life and in productivity."

"Despite a challenging legal and policy environment that exists around SRH in many countries, I have the privilege, as director of SRH/HRP at WHO to work with an amazing team that continues to generate new knowledge, provide evidence- backed guidance and work with dedicated professionals in partner countries and organizations to contribute to supporting SRHR."

"It is clear to me that the scientific research and evidence-backed norms and standards provided by HRP are as important as ever. But I think what can do better by being more futures-oriented in the way we work. In the global public health space, we're still reacting to things we know from the past, rather than trying to plan and implement with a sense of what will be relevant for the future. How do we project a little bit of what's happening with changes in the population, or political, physical and social environment and so on? Whatever the futures-related interventions are – whether it's training or capacity building or technologies – we need to make that more embedded in our planning."

"We should live in a world in which the productive years, right from childhood, hold boundless opportunities for all. This includes the option to be reproductive at an age when the choice can be autonomous, with an expectation to prevent unwanted pregnancies, survive and thrive through a desired pregnancy, childbirth, parenthood, and beyond, with access to high quality, patient-centered promotive, preventive, and curative care."

"The need to put the S back in sexual and reproductive health comes out of the unfortunate politicization of our work because there is such a strong and increasing resistance to SRHR. Reproduction does not occur without sex, and sex occurs much more frequently for reasons other than reproduction – what a revelation! It stands to reason that we have to ensure that this major part of our lives is safe, consensual, healthy, and fulfilling for all."

"The Harvard economist Claudia Goldin, who recently won the Nobel Prize, noted that the single most transformative intervention both for economies and gender equality is the control women have over their fertility. Even though that doesn't always necessarily translate into better access to contraception, it is the empowerment of women to decide not to be purely reproductive, but also productive beings beyond motherhood, that has enabled economies to grow. The whole idea of ensuring sexual health, which means that women can choose the nature of their relationships, when to have children, and space those children, is absolutely fundamental. It's so fundamental I find it difficult to even think about why this argument still needs to be made."

"Gender inequalities prevent women and girls from practicing safer sex, limits their use of contraceptives, increases their risk of acquiring STIs including HIV, and underpins violence and harmful practices. Gender inequalities intersect with other socioeconomic inequalities and discrimination on the basis of class, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, among others to shape inequities in SRH outcomes."

"I teach undergrad and grad mathematics courses, I do scientific research, I supervise grad students’ research, and I have some administrative duties in my department and university and within the larger scientific community. I am an applied mathematician, so my research involves using mathematical and computational methods to solve problems in science."

"My main interest is in geophysical fluid dynamics, which is the study of the movement of air and water in the atmosphere and oceans. I am particularly interested in understanding how waves in the atmosphere interact and affect the general circulation of the atmosphere and influence weather and climate."

"I decided to make a career teaching mathematics when I was about 4 years old. It is the only career I ever considered. As a teacher who also grew up in a family of teachers, my mother noticed and encouraged my interest in mathematics from a very early age."

"When I am not working, I hang out with my son. We enjoy travelling, especially going to the beach, and going to music concerts and festivals. Our favourite trips have been to Barbados and to Prince Edward Island."

"I was born in Barbados. My father was from Barbados and was a math professor with a PhD in the area of math called group theory. My mother was a teacher from Ghana. My father studied in the UK and first worked in Ghana, where he met my mother, then eventually moved back to the Caribbean where I was born and grew up. I also lived in Ghana and in the UK before moving to Canada."

"I got into the STEM field because I started working as a secretary and fell in love with Information Technology."

"I also saw for myself whilst working as a secretary that, all the IT consultants were really being paid well."

"As a secretary i was earning only 10% of the salary of an IT Consultant, so i made used of the technology tools available and slowly with the guide of some professionals, i got equipped with the right technology skill sets and within months, I established a career in STEM."

"Being named as one of the 100 inspirational women in the world by BBC in 2015 is a great achievement."

"Being a co winner of the Reach for Change and Tigo’s Digital Change maker’s award in 2016 is another achievement."

"Empowering over 10,000 elementary school children with basic programming skills in Ghana directly or indirectly is another great achievement."

"When i started family, it was difficult to put projects together without interruptions."

"I had to work extra hours both day and night to make up."

"As a founder of an NGO, we mostly rely on support both in cash and kind to expand to many other communities."

"We lack a lot of resources that can enable us to scale and tinker a lot."

"We have learnt to overcome them by introducing more computer science unplugged activities."

"My advice is that girls must ignore pressure to pursue a different field."

"They must capitalize on technology to learn new skills or improve on their skills."

"Technology is reinventing the world."

"Kids need new skills to prepare them for a successful career in the future but the current ICT (Information Communications Technology) curriculum does not include them which is quite alarming."

"This is where Ghana Code Club comes in."

"It is a volunteer led, after-school digital fun club that equips children between the ages of 8-17 years with coding skills."

"We have piloted with five schools and are ready to be launched into the majority of schools in Ghana during the first quarter of 2016."

"I always dreamed of leading a team of IT professionals in creating cutting-edge solutions for Africa."

"This passion emerged when I worked for an IT firm in Accra back in 2000 as a secretary."

"I admired the IT consultants so much, especially the only lady among them."

"I remember I took home only about 10% of what the IT professionals earned at the time."

"I wanted to enroll on an HTML course (HTML is the standard coding language used to create webpages) but the little money I earned I used to take care of my siblings. Instead of waiting forever, I decided to teach myself any way I could."

"I got in touch with a web designer who for a small fee introduced me to the basics of HTML."

"I practiced any time I got the chance and within weeks, I was designing my own websites."

"With more confidence in my skills, I took out a classified ad promoting myself as a virtual assistant and took on four clients, including one web-based telecom company in the USA."

"In 2004 I was able to resign as a secretary, rent an office and eventually hire people to provide additional support."

"I was so grateful and so happy with my progress that I wanted to do something to empower others with the kind of skill set that got me this far."

"I registered the NGO, Healthy Career Initiative in 2007 with the objective of empowering students with the skill set they will need to thrive in the 21st century but unfortunately it remained relatively inactive due to my heavy workload."

"I got married and had children and things slowed down even further as I realized I needed to work from home and be there for my kids when they needed me."

"One day, when my boy was 5, I was searching the internet for a simple programming platform to start teaching him and came across a blog about kids learning to code in the UK and the kind of things they were building that triggered my enthusiasm for my inactive NGO."

"I wanted Ghanaian kids to create the same exciting digital stuff kids in the developed world were creating."

"Things like interactive stories, websites, games and animation."

"I put plans together and Ghana Code Club was born."

"The best part of my job is being in the classroom with the kids feeling empowered that they have created things that can be used by another person from any part of the world."

"The smiles on their faces make me feel wonderful and hopeful that these kids will go on to develop the digital footprint of Ghana and Africa and impact the world as a whole."

"Technology is the catalyst to development in every country so Ghana also needs to emphasise its importance and steer resources towards technological advancement."

"Every home should have access to a computer and the internet."

"Then if kids can get trained in the right skills, the country will breed more entrepreneurs, innovators and problem solvers who are needed in every ministry to develop logical thinking."

"We aim to launch into 20 or more schools within the first quarter of 2016 reaching not less than 20,000 children."

"We also hope to organise an inter school competition to see the impact of creativity, problem-solving and collaborative skills within our code club members."

"We then hope to establish a training centre that will assist deprived children who in one way or another wish to participate in our code clubs but are unable to."

"We are always looking for support and donations to carry out our plans successfully!"

"I would like to acknowledge the partnerships with government and their regulators."

"They offer policy guidelines and directions to support and broaden the national policy agenda through the hospitality industry."

"We want to thank the government and we look forward to more fruitful collaborations to grow the hospitality industry to its exceptional level."

"Our lives have always been service and what you can do differently to improve the dynamics."

"Despite Ghana’s challenges in 2014 in terms of currency depreciation, investors have remained interested in the country and it remains a safe and secure investment destination."

"Political stability and streamlined investment procedures, Ghana possesses a robust legal and regulatory framework."

"The World Bank’s 2014 “Doing Business” report, Ghana ranks as the best destination in West Africa in terms of the ease of doing business."

"The country also placed second in Africa and 10th in the world in The Economist’s 2013 list of fastest-growing economies."

"At this stage investment activity from Brazil and other South American countries remains relatively limited."

"Other regions of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia have already demonstrated significant interest."

"South Africa, for example, has registered approximately 100 projects since the 1990s, and looking to Asia, India remains one of our top 10 foreign investors to date."

"This can be done in a few key ways."

"The country can support investment outside of these hubs and spread industry throughout the country by putting in place critical infrastructure in these areas. ‎*Ghana can strengthen its investment promotion strategies in targeted sectors and industries that have a comparative advantage in areas outside of Accra, Tema and Takoradi."

"Gold refining in the Ashanti Region, rice milling in the northern region or tourism training in the central region."

"The government has already put in place location based incentives for companies that invest inside and outside regional capitals."

"The GIPC actively encourages, promotes and facilitates investments both into and within Ghana, and we work to do this in a number of ways like ensuring awareness of investment and business opportunities."

"The GIPC is also celebrating corporate excellence and successful enterprise building through initiatives like the Ghana Club 100 awards."

"Part of our strategy for 2015 focuses on promotional efforts targeting specific investments from these countries."

"We are collaborating with their diplomatic missions in Ghana, as well as Ghana’s missions abroad, to gather relevant information on interested investors."

"We are also on the lookout for programmes that allow us to promote the country."

"The GIPC is focusing on establishing the optimal investment environment as well as encouraging larger investments."

"Although fewer than in same period of 2013, the second quarter of 2014 saw 47 new investment projects registered with GHS42.68m ($16.27m) in initial capital transfers and a total estimated value of GHS1.01bn ($385.01m)."

"India accounted for the most projects, with nine, while Mauritius registered the largest project, at $100m."

"Investors are guaranteed unconditional transferability of dividends and net profits after tax to their home countries."

"Transferability of payments for loan servicing in the case of foreign loans and royalties and other fees in respect of technology transfer transactions."

"From making known your intention to invest in Ghana through to business set-up, we accompany you all the way."

"Under our investor relation services, we make sure that the business is smoothly established and all linkages to the various relevant government agencies are established."

"GIPC engages with all governmental agencies at various levels to provide support to the foreign investor."

"Key among these institutions are the National Development Planning Commission."

"The Ghana Revenue Authority, the Registrar General’s Department, the Ghana Immigration Service and the Ministry of Finance."

"Remains a delicate issue and the GIPC land bank helps investors to find the appropriate land for their use."

"We also provide access to the Catalogue of Joint Venture Projects."

"This is to those investors who are looking for the right local partners to implement their project."

"We make available information on Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects. *These are usually large scale projects that government is seeking investments for."

"We encourage local entrepreneurs by finding them the right foreign partners in order to create growth."

"Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, which is the basic framework for the governance of the country, offers guarantees of protection to investors and their investments."

"The GIPC Act guarantees against expropriation as well."

"Expropriation is allowed only in the national interest and must be accompanied by fair and adequate compensation."

"We offer commitment at the bilateral level to protect investors and their investments."

"The GIPC is mandated to encourage and promote investments in the Ghanaian economy through the negotiation of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITS) with interested countries."

"Government gives the right to the investor to take Ghana to arbitration in any of the selected and pre agreed dispute settlement forums."

"Ghana has concluded more than 21 BITS."

"Ghana can boast of a premier location to do business on the African continent."

"Conditions present include political stability, a growing economy, increasing consumer demand, accessibility to the wider West African market and viable local partners."

"I will take this opportunity to invite potential investors from all over the world."

"Investors in Ghana have recorded average profits in excess of 35 per cent of their total investments."

"This is a huge return that I urge potential investors to take advantage of."

"We should invest in wild animal production given the socio-economic benefits such a venture could bring to the people, especially women doing business in the bushmeat trade."

"There are clear indications that COVID-19 has affected more women than men, and the situation is worse among women in the informal sector, where social protection is particularly lacking."

"Presently, we know very little about the health hazards implicated in the trade, just as we have little knowledge on the exposure of women bushmeat traders to zoonotic diseases."

"We have challenges we need to resolve to move forward, and the board will do all it can to ensure that practical solutions are formed to end the power crisis"