Dr. Paul Sarfo-Mensah is a Senior Research Fellow and Development Consultant at Bureau of Integrated Rural Development (BIRD), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. He has been with the Department since 1992. Paul is also a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa.

Paul holds a PhD (2001) in Natural Resources Management from Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, UK, and an M.Phil. (1995) in Agroforestry, Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (IRNR), KNUST. Paul has a Post Graduate Certificate (1992) in Rural Research and Rural Policy from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. His basic training was in Agriculture and holds a B.Sc. (Hons) Agriculture (1982) (Economics option) from KNUST.

Paul has 25 years of professional experience in academia (Research, Teaching and Community Engagement) and development consultancy with focus on agriculture, natural resource management and rural development.

With teaching and research at the university, he is involved in developing/teaching PhD-courses, development of research infrastructure and projects on adaptive natural resource governance, rural development and conflict management at KNUST and has collaborated with Prof Jens Emborg of University of Copenhagen under Building Stronger Universities Project 1 (BSU1). He was involved in a United Nations sponsored M.Sc. programme in Sustainable Integrated Rural Development in Africa at KNUST, and currently teaches an MPhil programme in Natural Resources and Environmental Governance, also at KNUST. Paul has collaborative working relations with colleagues from University of Copenhagen, University of Utah and University of Oregon in the USA in a programme dubbed “Takingthe university to the grassroots people for sustained development and growth”. Paul is playing a leading role in this collaborative participatory action research, at the centre of which is the local communities with facilitation from students, lecturers and professionals.

Paul has undertaken several consultancies and contract research for many international agencies including FAO, USAID, World Bank, DANIDA and Care Ghana, Care Denmark and Care International. These assignments have included baseline studies, performance and impact evaluations in agriculture, forestry, mining and environmental conservation. Among the latest contract research is the ACDI/VOCA Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement Project II (ADVANCE II) in the three Northern Regions in Ghana (2015). Paul was the Team Leader and led in the Technical and Financial Proposal writing and coordinated the entire assignment. He has working experience in Uganda, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Denmark. Paul is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) on KNUST Campus of the USAID-Funded Analytical Support Systems and Evaluations in Sustainable Systems in Agriculture, Environment, Trade and Energy in West Africa (ASSESS-WA). Paul’s research interest is in:

• Nature and Culture - anthropological perspectives of natural resources management and environmental conservation; and
• Rural Development - decentralization and local level institutional development, agriculture and poverty reduction.

Paul has several peer reviewed publications in these areas. Paul was a member (2005-2008) of the Central Ghana Cluster, UN People, Land Management and Environmental Change (PLEC) Research, United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan, and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Administrators & Management Consultants – Ghana (CIAMG).