Nana Afadzinu, West Africa Civil Society Institute - WACSI (Ghana)

Nana Afadzinu, Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), has worked with and within the civil society sector for over 24 years. She is a passionate advocate for sustainable development in Africa with the full participation of an effective, efficient, influential and sustainable civil society. Her passion for leading change and challenging the Status Quo on the continent, recently landed her a place on the Avance Media 2020 100 Most Influential African Women List.

She is a lawyer by profession and has worked on areas of governance, human rights, philanthropy and capacity development with several mission-oriented organizations in Africa. These include the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and IBIS West Africa, among others.

Nana has also served as a member of several public service, corporate and non-profit boards including but not limited to the AfDB-CSO Committee, the ISTR, YALI West Africa and the Star Ghana Foundation board. She is also a Trustee of OXFAM Great Britain, a board member of Resource Alliance, and a member of the Advisory Council of the SDG Philanthropy Forum in Ghana.

She is an alumna of the University of Ghana, Faculty of Law, the Ghana School of Law, the Columbia University Human Rights Advocates Program and the New York University School of Law.