Yaw has over 25 years of experience in ESHIA, rural participatory and stakeholder engagements; with about a decade of the period at the EPA Ghana, as a former Director in charge of Environmental Assessment and Audit. Yaw played a lead role in developing the Environmental Assessment Regulations (LI 1652) and the Ghana EIA Procedures; organized the maiden ESHIA trainings to build local capacity in Ghana for Consultants, EPA staff, etc. and held the first formal Public Hearing in Ghana in Takoradi (1996).
Yaw has led over 60 teams to conduct Health Impact Assessment (HIA), Livelihoods Impact Assessment (LIA), Safe Sea Access Framework for the oil and gas industry, Preliminary Impact Assessment for Tullow, Kosmos, Aker Energy/Hess and AGM Petroleum, and several other ESHIAs. Yaw has also been involved in multiple stakeholder engagements in most coastal/fishing communities in the six (6) coastal districts of the Western Region of Ghana.
Furthermore, as the Social Assessment Consultant for Tullow’s TEN Project SIA, Yaw worked closely with all stakeholders in the oil and gas and fisheries sectors (EPA, GMA, PC, FC, the Canoe Council and other NGOs, Paramount and Divisional Chiefs and community leaders).
Yaw also has extensive experience in environmental assessment policy and requirements of the World Bank/IFC, African Development Bank, etc. and is a member of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) since 1996, member of the Board of Directors (2014 – 2018), and President of IAIA (2015 – 2016).
He has a BSc. (Hons) Biological Sciences from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, an MSc in Environmental Science from the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, a Certificate for Graduate Study & Professional Development from the University of California, Davis, USA (Hubert Humphrey Fellowship), a Certificate in GIS & Satellite Imagery Processing Technology Application from the Regional Centre for Services in Surveying, Mapping & Remote Sensing. Nairobi, Kenya, a Certificate in Conservation & Management of Marine Resources from the International Ocean Institute – Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and a Certificate in Urban (Environmental) Policy Development Public Policy Program – University of California Extension, Los Angeles, USA
He is a former Director, Environmental Information/Data Management Department of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the past President of the International Association for Impact Assessment and the Executive Director of Green Advocacy Ghana.