Committee Member
Akua is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Cape Coast. She holds a PhD in Union Governance and Globalization from the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands. She teaches Gender and Development in the MA Development Management at the University of Cape Coast.
She has served as a Guest Lecturer at the International Center for Decent Work and Development (ICDD), University of Kassel, Germany and is an Associate Fellow of the Global Labour University. She worked on the African Workers' Development Programme (APADEP) first as a researcher conducting nationwide research on democratic worker participation, and later as the Education Coordinator in charge of the African trade union, university based post- graduate certificate programme.
She was part of the team of trade union researchers who designed trade union/university educational programmes at the certificate, diploma and post-graduate levels. She is currently assisting to co-ordinate an eleven-country study on gender and trade union leadership. She has conducted research on sexual harassment and gender mainstreaming in Ghanaian Universities, as well as trade union internal democracy. Her current research activities include labour history in Africa, market women traders' associations, gender, and leadership in trade unions. She has publications on gender-based violence, gender and informal economy, trade union governance and internal democracy.