Ghanaian Writer Wins Korean Award

Ghanaian development writer and practitioner, Ivor Agyeman-Duah has been given a Korean Institute of International Economic Policy (KIEP) award for 2011. Worth $10,000 it is for his research essay, Beyond the Miracle of the Han River: Patriotism as a Pro-Growth Factor in Korea’s Development. The second African to be given the prize, he will spend time, according to the KIEP announcement release, to complete a book manuscript (to be published in English and Korean) of the same title at KIEP’s Centre for Regional Economic Studies in Seoul. Regarded as one of the world’s leading economic think tanks, the KIEP together with The Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York also run the annual Asian Economic Panel.

Agyeman-Duah is author of nine published books including two edited anthologies, An Economic History of Ghana (Oxfordshire, 2008), Pilgrims of the Night- Development Challenges and Opportunities in Africa (Clarke Publishers, Oxford, December 2010,). His policy book chapters include – Assessing George W. Bush’s Africa Policy, A Primer in African Studies, (2009 and 2010 respective publications of the US based African Studies and Research Forum).

He also belongs to a network that uses informal and cultural measurements to assess issues of economic growth. In the last 12 years and since graduate studies - a Master of Science at the London School of Economics ( International Relations and Economic Development of East and Southeast Asia) and a Master of Science at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (where he studied Economic Development looking at State and Development in Asia and Africa), he has used philosophical and cultural factors to understand and to partly explain why some post-colonial economies in East Asia have done better than those in Africa. Inducted eight years ago into the Phi Beta Delta Society of Writers and Scholars - College of Arts and Letters, California State University (Pomona), he has as travel writer in East and South-east Asia also published, Knowledge and Travel: The Inquirer Never Misses the Road. His review essays on the region have been published in such journals as International Affairs of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London and the Asia and Africa Studies Journal in The Netherlands.

Currently a researcher in cultural economy at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Mr. Agyeman-Duah is also special assistant on international development co-operation to former Ghanaian President, John Agyekum Kufuor.