The Governing Council
The Governing Council is the highest decision making body of the Foundation. It provides strategic oversight and direction to STAR-Ghana Foundation as well as the STAR-Ghana Programme, including guidance on how the Foundation engages on political issues and occupies political spaces, while managing sensitivities. The Council supports the programme’s vision of an active citizenry and a vibrant, well-informed civil society engaging with government and the private sector to advance transformational change that leaves no-one behind. It ensures adherence to the highest standards of good governance, ethical practice and social responsibility. The council supports inclusive and coordinated working, awareness amongst grant beneficiaries of the overarching strategic aim and objectives of the programme, with adequate feedback channels and learning from frontline experiences.
Membership
The Governing Council comprises twelve members from diverse backgrounds such as academia, civil society and private sector. The Governing Council meets four times each year (including a strategic away day). All Council members are offered induction, training and development as appropriate. Members serve in their individual capacities for a tenure of four years.
Members
Dr. Esther Ofei-Aboagye
Dr Esther Oduraa Ofei-Aboagye, Chair of the STAR-Ghana Foundation is a social policy analyst and a teacher. She brings to the role a long and distinguished association with civil society and national development. She has been a member of the erstwhile Steering Committee of the STAR-Ghana Programme since 2013 and chaired the Steering Committee from January 2018 to December 2019. In addition, she has served as a member of the Board of ISODEC and Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights. She is also a member of WIEGO, a global network focused on securing livelihoods for the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy Until January 2015, she was the Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS). Prior to ILGS, she was employed at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. Dr Ofei-Aboagye has been extensively involved in national social policy formulation and decentralised development management. She has served on a number of public and civil society boards. She is a member of the University of Ghana Council and the Chairperson of the Council of the Presbyterian College of Education. She has also served as the Vice-Chairperson of the National Development Planning Commission and a member of the Ghana Tourism Authority Board. She has also served as Chairperson of the Executive Council of the Integrated Social Development Centre.Dr Ofei-Aboagye has a doctorate degree in public policy from the University of Birmingham, UK, a master's in public administration from Carleton University, Canada, and a bachelor's degree in economics and sociology and a diploma in education, both from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.
Charles Abugre - Vice Chair
Charles Abugre has been active in the civil society space in Ghana, at a pan-African level and globally for decades. Nationally he has catalyzed, contributed to or co-created several civil society organisations, networks, coalitions and campaigns, including ISODEC, The Third World Network, the Centre for Public Interest Law, The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition; the Northern Ghana Network for Development; the Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights; Cedi Finance Foundation (a microfinance institution) and the National Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water, among others. At the global and pan-African levels, Mr Abugre has been active in the Tax Justice Network; the Trade Justice movement; Jubilee Debt Coalition, among others. Charles' work in the NGO space has also been hands-on managing rural development and humanitarian progammes in Ghana, in war zones in Uganda and Eritrea, managing research and advocacy work in the UK with Christian Aid and ACORD, in Malaysia with Third World Network. In terms of global economic policy research think-tanks, Mr Abugre is a founding member of the World Economics Association (WEA); the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) Network - both created to advance progressive and heterodox economics -and the Chronic Poverty research Network (ODI, UK). Charles taught Development Management at the Centre for Development Studies at Swansea University, UK, Summer courses on Gender and Macroeconomics at Utah University, and headed the United Nations Millennium Campaign as the Africa Regional Director, based at UNDP, Nairobi prior to returning to Ghana as CEO of SADA. He is currently a development consultant and Co-Convenor of the Foundation for Transformation of Marginal Areas (TAMA Foundation Universal). Charles is a Development Economist by training.
Gertrude Fofoame
Gertrude Oforiwa Fefoame is an advocate on disability and gender issues, a resource/technical person on programming with focus on disability and a mentor since 1979 with over 40 years of experience. She has extensive national and international experience in advocacy, programme development and capacity building programmes in social development. Her vast experience and relentless efforts to influence and advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities led to her election to serve as an expert member on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in June 2018 and was elected for the second term in 2022. In March 2023, she was elected as the Chair of the Committee to serve for two years.
Ethel Cofie
Named one of the Top 5 Women impacting IT in Africa, Ethel is CEO and founder of EDEL Technology Consulting, an IT Consulting Company in West Africa and Europe who was recently named IT Consulting Firm of the year by the Telecoms and IT Industry. She is also founder of Women in Tech Africa, Africa’s largest women in tech group with members in over 30 Africa countries and in the diaspora and growing. She created women in tech week, a global event which started in 2016 and impacts over 10,00 women globally. Ethel has been featured on BBC and had opinion pieces published on CNN on the topics of technology in emerging markets, and women leadership. She also sits on a number of boards across Africa.
Bernard Avle
