PROF. NICHOLAS AWORTWI [Member/ Director, ILGS]

Ph. D. (The Hague) MA (The Hague), B. Sc. (KNUST)

Prof. Nicholas Awortwi has been the Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) since June 2019. He is a professional development planner and an expert in governance and public policy with over 20 years of experience in social protection, decentralization and local governance, public policy and development management, and public-private partnerships. Prior to his appointment as Director of the ILGS, Prof. Awortwi was the Director of the African Governance Institute based in The Hague as well as Director of Research at the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR), based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has also worked as Senior Lecturer in Development Management at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University, The Netherlands and a visiting lecturer at various universities including the F.H.R Lim A Po School of Public Administration & Governance, Paramaribo in Suriname.

He holds a PhD Cum Laude (with Distinction) in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University in the Netherlands and in August 2021, he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi. He is a member of the Ghana Institute of Planners and has been one of the leading authors in decentralization and local governance, and social protection issues and provided expert analysis and advice to various international organisations working in Africa such as the UNDP, UNCDF, World Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Netherlands Development Cooperation. He has more than 40 peer-review publications in internationally refereed journals and books.