Education
Source: Daily Graphic
The University of Sussex in the United Kingdom has conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Prof. Takyiwaa Manuh, Director of the Social Development Policy programme of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), at its graduation ceremony held on July 14, 2015.
The honour is in recognition of Prof. Manuh's contributions to the fields of law, gender and politics.
Scholar-activist, lawyer and anthropologist
In a presentation speech Prof. Andrea Cornwall, Head of the School of Global Studies of the university, said Prof. Manuh, a scholar-activist, lawyer and anthropologist, had made significant contributions to the struggle for justice in Ghana; in her work at the ECA, as part of national and trans-continental networks such as the Network of Women's Rights, ABANTU for Development and CODESRIA, and in global policy spaces through her advisory work with UNESCO, UNFPA, the International Network on Migration and others.
She said Prof. Manuh's interest in issues of justice, rights and development was inspired by growing up witnessing injustice and inequality around her in the world.
"Those were the days of apartheid South Africa and the Vietnam War; a time when women were considered in law as a category of 'persons under disability' rather than equal citizens with equal rights," Prof. Cornwall said.
Prof. Manuh studied for a degree in law at the University of Ghana from 1971 to 1976, and was called to the bar. She acquired a master's degree at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
First female director of IAS
On her return to Ghana, she took up a post at the Institute of African Studies (IAS), of which many years later she would come to serve as its first female director.
In 1992, Prof. Manuh studied for a PhD in anthropology at Indiana University where she became interested in questions of migration. Upon her return, she fostered the establishment of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy at the University of Ghana, and engaged actively in policy processes on gender and migration and violence against women.
Prof. Manuh's response
In her response, Prof. Manuh expressed her gratitude to her family members, teachers, mentors, colleagues and friends and networks, both professional and social, for their support, encouragement and belief in her ability to succeed.
She said, "In the part of the world where I was born, it was not at all a certainty some fifty-odd years ago when I attained school age that I would actually be enrolled in school, or remain in school and progress all the way to tertiary education and beyond."
"It is a testament to the progress that has occurred almost everywhere now that the right of girls to an education, skills and training, is almost uncontested and actually promoted, as we saw with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that are now ending, and reiterated in the successor and more ambitious Sustainable Development Goals that are set to come into place later this year," Prof. Manuh added.
She, noted that aside the area of girls' education and women's rights, some progress had also occurred in the area of politics in Africa.
"There is now a general commitment to democratisation and the rule of law to the extent that even autocratic governments which wish to remain in power want the veneer of democracy and try to extend their rule through elections, however stacked these may be," she stated.
It is also recognised, she further said, that several African countries were among the fastest growing economies in the world.
"However, the challenge remains of translating these impressive growth rates into decent jobs and skills for the teeming populations of young people, of bridging the rising inequalities, and stemming the tide of some of the desperate migrations that we read about in the news almost every day."
She reminded the graduands that they were entering a fast-changing and turbulent world full of uncertainties and challenges which could not be taken for granted.
"But the world you are entering has also experienced significant progress, including in the areas I've described today," she stated, and called on them to make use of technology to engage with the world and build on the progress in women's rights, the rule of law, and democracy.