International Forum for Democratic Studies Research Council Member

E. Gyimah-Boadi

Center for Democratic Development (Ghana)
& Afrobarometer

E. Gyimah-Boadi is executive director of both the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), an independent policy research and policy advocacy group for democracy, good governance and economic opportunity in Ghana and Africa based in Accra; and the Afrobarometer, a pan-African survey research project tracking public opinion on political, economic and social developments in African countries. He is also a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon.

The wide range of international agencies to which Gyimah-Boadi has provided consultancy services on African/Ghanaian democratic and good governance reforms include the African Development Bank, UNECA, UNDP, DFID, USAID, GTZ/GIZ, World Bank, and Transparency International. He was also an advisor on the former German President Horst Kohler’s Partnership with Africa Project (2006-08) and Ghana’s national reconciliation/transitional justice program (2002-5).

His recent publications include “Ghana: The Limits of External Democracy Assistance” (with Theo Yakah) WIDER Working Paper No. 2012/40. He also is co-author (with Mike Bratton and Robert Mattes) of Public Opinion, Democracy and Market Reform in Africa, Cambridge University Press (2005); and Editor, Democratic Reform in Africa: The Quality of Progress, Lynne Rienner Publishers (2004).

Current professional and other affiliations include fellowship of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and membership of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy; the Advisory Council of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance; International Advisory Council of the International Center for Transitional Justice; International Advisory Board of the Varieties of Democracy Project; Founding Advisory Group of the Institute for Integrated Transitions; Board of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (local chapter of Transparency International); Governing Council of the Catholic Institute of Business and Technology, Accra.

He has held fellowships at the Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law at Stanford University, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and International Forum for Democratic Studies.


Forum Publications

“Africa’s Waning Democratic Committment,” Journal of Democracy (Jan. 2015)

“Translating Research into Policy: Two Cases from CDD-Ghana,” from Democracy Think Tanks in Action: Translating Research into Policy in Young and Emerging Democracies, a Project of the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, International Forum for Democratic Studies (Jun. 2013)

“Oil, Politics and Ghana’s Democracy,” co-authored with H. Kwasi Prempeh, Journal of Democracy (Jul. 2012)

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