Dr. Rita Owusu-Amankwah

Dr. Rita Owusu-Amankwah is a Gender and Social Development specialist with over 20 years of professional experience in gender equality, social protection, child labour, safeguarding, livelihoods and community development across Ghana and West Africa. She has particular expertise in the cocoa and agricultural sectors, where her work has strengthened child-protection systems, promoted decent work and advanced gender-responsive, socially inclusive development.

As Country Programme Coordinator for the ILO's West Africa Cocoa/Commercial Agriculture Project (WACAP), she pioneered the establishment of Ghana's first Community-Based Child Labour Monitoring System (CLMS) — a model later replicated in Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Cameroon and Guinea. She subsequently served as National Programme Manager for Ghana's National Programme for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa, funded by the World Cocoa Foundation. More recently she led the Fairtrade International/Fairtrade Africa assessment of child-labour monitoring for the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Union and the baseline study for the WUSC-funded INVEST Project.

Dr. Owusu-Amankwah holds a PhD in Social Science (Sociology) from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and an MA in Economics/Industrial Management from KNUST. She is recognised for expertise in gender and social inclusion, child protection, labour standards, institutional capacity development and stakeholder engagement.