Our Board Members

Akua Kuenyehia

Akua Kuenyehia

Professor Akua Kuenyehia is a Ghanaian Lawyer who served as a judge of the International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2015. Prof. Kuenyehia was educated at the University of Ghana, Legon, and Oxford University. She spent most of her professional career teaching at the Faculty of Law in the University of Ghana, ending her career as Dean of the Faculty. While at the university, she taught criminal law, gender and the law, international human rights law, and public international law.

She was also a Visiting Professor at other institutions including Leiden University in the Netherlands and Temple University in the United States of America. While at the Faculty of Law, she coordinated a Sub Regional Research Network, Women and Law in West Africa covering Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia.

Kuenyehia's activism saw her serving as one of the first board members of the Africa Regional Network, Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF). In Ghana, she was an active member of FIDA Ghana, serving as president from 1988-1992. She has been a pioneer advocating for equal opportunity, justice, and development for women in Ghana and around the world. She has published widely on women and law. She is co-author of a textbook on Women and Law in Sub-Saharan Africa, published in August 2003 which is currently the only comprehensive textbook on the subject. She served on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women(CEDAW) from 2002 till she was elected to be a judge in the International Criminal Court in 2003.


Dorcas Coker-Appiah

Dorcas Coker-Appiah

Mrs. Dorcas Coker-Appiah is a lawyer by profession. She started her professional career at the Attorney-General’s Department as a State Attorney. She left to join the State Hotels Corporation as the Solicitor Secretary. As an active member of FIDA Ghana, she served as President from 1992 to 1994. As a legal aid volunteer, she received funding to start FIDA's simplification of family laws project.

Dorcas also participated in the first conference of WiLDAF in Harare, which inspired her to help with the establishment of WiLDAF Ghana. Dorcas was the first coordinator of WiLDAF Ghana, developing the Legal Awareness Programme in Western and Volta Regions. As one of the four founding members of the GSHRDC, Dorcas has been the driving force behind the organisation, serving as the Executive Director to date.

Dorcas' activism expands beyond the national level. She served two terms on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee. She is also one of the founders of the International Network to End Violence against Women and Girls, (INEVAWG). The network was formed by a group for women of colour from the Global South. Dorcas has several publications to her credit.


Yaa Peprah Agyeman Amekudzi

Yaa Peprah Agyeman Amekudzi

Yaa Peprah Agyeman Amekudzi is a Development Practitioner with over twenty-five years of experience leading development interventions in Ghana and abroad. She is currently the Country Lead of Mondelēz International’s Cocoa Life Program in Ghana.

Yaa holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration; a Diploma in Communications; a Master of Public Health Degree; a Certificate in Gestalt Organisation and Systems Development; and an Executive MBA in Project Management.


Marilyn Aniwa

Marilyn Aniwa

Marilyn Aniwa is a Population and Development Specialist with over twenty-five years of development experience. Marilyn holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Population and Development from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands; a Master of Arts degree in Population Studies, from the Regional Institute of Population Studies; and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Archaeology and History from the University of Ghana.

She is currently the Lead Impact for the MasterCard Foundation and before that Coordinator of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC). Marilyn previously worked as the Executive Director of the Union for African Population Studies (UAPS). She also worked with the Parliamentary Centre of Canada as an In-Country Coordinator for Ghana; with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as Development Officer; the British Council as Assistant Director; and a Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism.

Marilyn is an experienced manager with several years practice in project management and development. Her area of expertise is in Governance, Gender Training and Advocacy, Policy Analysis, Monitoring & Evaluation, Demographic Analysis and Research.


Akua Amoah-Boateng

Akua Amoah-Boateng

Akua Amoah-Boateng is the Finance Manager for World Cocoa Foundation’s (WCF) African Cocoa Initiative and manages Finance and Administration in the Accra Office. Over the last eighteen years, she has acquired audit and consultancy experience from PricewaterhouseCoopers as well as Emmanuel Koram and Associates.

Akua also worked with USAID West Africa and Care International (Ghana, Togo, and Benin) before joining WCF. Akua is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK, and holds a BSc. in Applied Accounting from the Oxford Brookes University, UK. She also has a Diploma in French from the Alliance Franҫaise, France.