EUC Global Connection – Ghana
The Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change brings together geographers, physical scientists, social scientists, humanities researchers and artists whose innovative research seeks to advance sustainability and social justice. Using field-based science, policy analysis, critical social theory, planning skills, geomatics, and cultural and arts-based approaches, our researchers drive action to address the world’s environmental and urban challenges.
EUC researchers are engaged in collaborative relationships, projects and partnerships with colleagues and institutions around the world. Here are the works we have been doing in Ghana.
EUC Main Researchers in Ghana
EUC Main Partner Institutions in Ghana
EUC Research in Ghana
It is unsurprising that there are longstanding relationships and agreements between York University and tertiary institutions in Ghana, given the sizable Ghanaian diasporic population in the GTA. In fact, the present Vice President of Ghana, HE Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, is a York alumna, and her recent ascent to office was duly celebrated on March 6, 2025, as part of York’s commemoration of Ghana’s 68th Independence anniversary. In addition to a vibrant Ghanaian Students’ Association, there are Ghanaian-born faculty members in several programs at York—including our own Joseph Mensah.
With its foci on postcolonial discourse, Black Geographies, environmental sustainability, resource extraction, critical geography, urban analysis, and critical development studies, EUC has been a conducive academic home for countless Ghanaian-Canadian and Ghanaian international students. Present graduate students include Desmond Asiedu, who is doing his MES project under Liette Gilbert; Felicia Achamah, who is working on her MA under Anna Zalik; and Vivien Bediako, a PhD student under Joseph Mensah’s supervision.
Mensah has extensive high-profile relationships with many universities in Ghana, including the premier University of Ghana, where he has been part of the Pan African Doctoral Academy (PADA), since 2015. Sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation, PADA runs short-term courses on academic writing, qualitative methods, quantitative techniques, and presentation skills for PhD students across Africa. Additionally, Mensah has been working with the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), University of Ghana, for years now. In fact, he spent a year teaching, researching, and supervising students at CMS under a CODESRIA Diaspora Fellowship in 2016-17.
Mensah has recently won a major grant, with the Center for Biodiversity Conservation Research (CBCR) at the University of Ghana, to address climate vulnerabilities through nature-based solutions. Sponsored by CLARE, IDRC, and UKID, this project focuses on riparian zones along the Volta basin in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Prior to this, Mensah worked with partners at CBCR on a Women Rise Project, regarding the health and socioeconomic vulnerabilities of female bushmeat traders in the context of COVID-19 in Ghana. Last year, four of his Ghanaian partners on this project—including Dr Kofi Amponsah-Mensah, Prof Charlotte Wrigley-Asante, Dr. Fidelia Ohemeng, and Dr Emmanuel Odame—visited EUC for knowledge mobilization.
Expectedly, Mensah has authored joint publications with many scholars at the University of Ghana, including Professors Joseph Yaro, Samuel Adjei-Mensah, Joseph Teye, Mary Setrana, and Leander Kandilige. Similarly, Mensah has done extensive teaching, research, and graduate supervision at both the Ghana Institute of Public Administration (GIMPA) and the Ghana Communication Technology University (GCTU). It is based on these scholarly endeavours in Ghana, in particular, and Africa in general, that the University World News did a spotlight interview on Mensah, entitled “African diaspora scholar—living in a ‘third space.’” . Recently Mensah received an award from the African Mobility Scholar Association for his “outstanding contribution to advancing mobility scholarship in Africa and beyond.”
