Akwasi Aidoo

Akwasi Aidoo is a Senior Fellow at Humanity United, a foundation dedicated to building peace and advancing human rights around the world.  Prior to that, Akwasi was the founding Executive Director of TrustAfrica, an African grant-making foundation that promotes democratic and equitable development on the continent.  Akwasi’s professional life in the last forty-six years has centered on human rights and philanthropy in Africa. His previous roles include head of the health and equity program of the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC’s) in West and Central Africa, head of the Ford Foundation’s offices in Senegal and Nigeria, and director of the Ford Foundation’s Special Initiative for Africa.  Akwasi currently serves on the Boards of Human Rights Watch, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment at Wits Business School at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.  He also previously served as a trustee of many international organizations, including the Fund for Global Human Rights, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), OXFAM America, Resource Alliance, the Crime Prevention Centre of South Africa, Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP), Global Greengrants Fund, and the Global Network Committee of the Ash Institute at Harvard University.  Akwasi was educated in Ghana and the United States and received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Connecticut in 1985. He has taught at universities in Ghana, Tanzania, and the United States. He writes poetry and fiction in his spare time, and is a published poet. In 2015, Akwasi received the Africa Philanthropy Award in Tanzania.