Dr. Patrick Opoku is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi. He is a graduate of KNUST (BSc), University of Copenhagen, Denmark (Diploma) and the Dresden University of Technology in Germany (PhD). Dr. Opoku is an interdisciplinary researcher and academic with expertise spanning both the natural and social sciences. His current research interests are in the areas of policy and governance as well as urban forestry and agroforestry adoption. In addition, his teaching activities cover areas such as statistics, forest business planning and appraisal, entrepreneurship, business management, socioeconomics and policy of tropical forestry.

Beyond academia, Dr. Opoku has contributed to multidisciplinary, donor-funded development projects in Ghana and internationally, working with partners and programmes supported by the European Union, the World Bank, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, the Netherlands and UK Government and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), among others. His professional experience combines research, policy engagement, institutional collaboration and capacity development, enabling him to connect scientific evidence with practical solutions to environmental and development challenges.

He has over 15 years work experience in Ghana and abroad and has worked for organizations such as the Dutch Organization for Development Cooperation (Tropenbos International), the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Germany. 

Dr Patrick Opoku served as the West Africa Advisor for the Strengthening Advisory Capacities for Land Governance in Africa (SLGA) programme, implemented by GIZ under Germany’s Special Initiative “One World – No Hunger” (SI AGER). In this role, he supported the African Land Policy Centre (ALPC)—a joint initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Union Commission (AUC), and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in establishing the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA).

Under the NELGA programme, Dr. Opoku assisted the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in the implementation of the In-country In-region scholarship program in Africa that has granted over 82 scholarships to students and professionals accross Africa. He has been instrumental in the development of training programs and curricula on land governance in KNUST, University of Liberia, University of Makeni in Sierra Leone and the Federal University of Technology in Minna State, Nigeria. 

He is a recipient of several prestigious awards including the Climate Africa Scholarship Award, Alexander von Humboldt Climate Protection Fellowship Award and the Dresden Leibniz Graduate Scholarship. He is a member of the Ghana Science Association and a Fellow of the Ghana Institute of Foresters. Patrick is also a Visiting Research Associate at the Chair of Forest Policy and Resource Economics, Dresden University of Technology, Germany.