On Thursday, 13th October, 2016, the International Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) organized a workshop to review preliminary findings made by the Principal Investigator, Dr. William Baah-Boateng for the Project dubbed “Growth in West Africa: assessing impacts of extractive industry on women’s economic empowerment in Cote d’Ivoire & Ghana”. This event brought together stakeholders from academia, governmental agencies and extractive sector-based institutions.

During the Project's Steering Committe meeting, Prof. Abena Oduro sought clarifications on how some of the research objectives are going to be achieved going forward. The  issues raised by her resulted in a modification of some of the research questions by the Project leader, Dr. Baah-Boateng. Mr. Christopher Nyarko, a member of the committee and coming from Ghana Chamber of Mines, an umbrella body of mining organisations also suggested that the work schedule that pertains in mining operations require that primary data to be collected should be as brief as possible.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong as the new Oppenheimer Faculty Director of the Harvard University Center for African Studies effective July 1, 2016. Akyeampong, Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, is the senior historian of Africa at Harvard, and specializes in West African history, Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa, comparative slavery, social history of alcohol, disease and medicine, ecology, the African diaspora, political economy and trade, and social and cultural history.

source: www.theguardian.com Public health efforts in Africa have focused on infectious diseases such as HIV, but chronic diseases are also big killers.