Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah is a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana with over 20 years of experience at the Ghana Bar. He is a Notary Public, a Criminologist, a world-class Governance and Leadership expert, and a Management Consultant of international distinction and repute.
Ken Attafuah was the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA) of Ghana from February 2017 to November 2024. During his tenure, he successfully led the transformation of NIA into a modern, vibrant institution spearheading Ghana’s digitalisation agenda through a dependable ultra-modern National Identification System (NIS) and a robust identity Verification System Platform (VSP) for inclusive social, economic and political development.
This feat was accomplished via a public-privatepartnership arrangement with Identity ManagementSystems II Limited, NIA’s technical partners. Since January 2022, over 120 million identity verification tasks have been performed without a single failure. Over 18 million Ghanaians at home and abroad were registered onthe National Identity Register (NIS) during his tenure at NIA.
His exceptional leadership ensured that NIA was the proud recipient in December 2021 of the much-coveted award for the Most Efficient Public Service Delivery Institution in Ghana, a recognition conferred by the highly respectedGhana Integrity Initiative, the local Chapter of Transparency International, the global anti-corruption agency.
In June 2023, Prof. Ken Attafuah was the recipient of the Outstanding Public Service CEO of the Year Award 2022 (Digital Information Technology Sector), at the 13th Ghana Entrepreneurs & Corporate Executives Awards & Summit. The award recognised his sterling leadership and innovation within a Public Private Partnership (PPP framework in providing the NIS, which comprises (1) a de-duplicated National Identity Register (NIR), (2) the Ghana Card, and (3) a secure biometric VSP.
The effective implementation of the NIS has resulted in, among other things, minimisation of business risks, reduction of financial fraud, and enhanced trust in personal identities during economic, social and political transactions in Ghana.
Ken Attafuah was an Associate Professor of Governance and Leadership at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). In 2011, he became the Founding Director of the William Ofori-Atta Institute of Integrity at Central University, and subsequently served as the Founding Dean of the Central University Faculty of Law from 2013 to 2017.
Between February 2017 and November 2024, Prof. Attafuah also served as the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Ghana Refugee Boaro (GRB) where he provided effective policy leadership in the management of complex refugee isues, led and guided the refugee status determination processes of the GRB, trained staff of GRB in leadership governance and compliance, and represented Ghana at severa meetings of the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. Switzerland.
From 2008 to 2019, Ken Attafuah served in several positions on the Board of Action Aid Ghana (AAG), including Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, and Member of the Human Resource Committee, the Organizational Development Committee, and the Governance and Board Development Committee, unleashing a wealth of experience and leadership that strengthened AAG locally and raised its stature globally as an effective anti-poverty organization contributing to food production, educational infrastructure development, and the reduction of gender inequality particularly in the northern parts of Ghana.
Prof. Ken Attafuah was a Commissioner for Human Rights in British Columbia, Canada, from 1992 to 1997, and subsequently as an Adjudicator with the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board. He has lectured at several Canadian universities and as an Adjunct Professor at the prestigious School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver, Canada, where he earned a PhD in Criminology in 1994.
He has extensive experience in conflict resolution (mediation, conciliation and arbitration), investigations, adjudication, corporate governance and inter-group relations management. In 1992, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of British Columbia appointed him a Member of the statutory Provincial Multicultural Advisory Council.
In November 1995, Ken Attafuah was honoured by the Vancouver Multicultural Society with its much-coveted Distinguished Public Service Award. He was also the recipient of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jnr. Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to race relations in Canada from the National Black Coalition of Canada (NBCC) in 1992
Ken served as the Executive Secretary of Ghana’s National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) from 2002 to 2004, an initiative aimed at excavating Ghana’s ugly past of human rights violations and abuses and fostering healing and reconciliation for national development.
Prior to that engagement, Ken served as Chief Investigator and Director of Operations, and Director of Public Education & Anti-Corruption at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRA), Ghana, from 1998 to 2002. He subsequently served as the United Nations’ International Technical Advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia.
He has also consulted widely in the creation and capacity-building of institutions for the promotion and protection of integrity, human rights, gender equity, good governance and truth and reconciliation globally.
He spends his spare time on his poultry and cocoa farms in his hometown of Juaso in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.