Dr. Yvonne Nana Afua Idun is a Lecturer in Law at the School of Law, University of Ghana, and Director of Programmes at the University’s Law Research Centre. Prior to this, she was Dean of Law at the Zenith University College (of the University of London) in Ghana. She was the first African woman to earn a PhD in Law from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Her previous experiences include being Chairperson of Public Law at the Kenyatta University School of Law in Nairobi, Kenya; Programme Officer at the UN University-International Leadership Institute in Jordan and an Environmental Policy Analyst at the UN University-Institute for Natural Resources in Africa, based in Ghana. She has also lectured and conducted research at the Africa Institute of South Africa, the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand in South Africa and Yale Law School in the USA.

She has undertaken consultancy assignments with the UN Office for Women in the Dominican Republic, the WWF and UNEP in Kenya, the UNDP Offices in USA, Benin and Liberia, the UNIDO and IUCN Offices in Ghana and the UNECA in Ethiopia. As part of these professional experiences, she has translated policy briefs, reports and legal documents from French into English.

Dr. Idun holds a BA in Law and French from the University of Ghana, a Certificate in French Language Proficiency and Civilization from the Institut Supérieur Privé in France, an LLM in the Law of International Trade from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in International Environmental Law and the Law of International Trade from the University of Cape Town.

Her current activities include being a member of the Vishnu Law Group’s Consortium for Developing an Environmental Code for Cambodia. She is also a founding member of the Alliance for Migration, Leadership and Development NGO in Senegal. She is an Editorial Advisor of the Board of Advisors of the African Journal of Clinical Education and Access to Justice; a member of the Réseau de Femmes Africaines et Espagnoles pour un Monde Meilleur in the Canary Islands; the Mother’s Mercy Home Orphanage project in Limuru, Kenya; and the Population Environment Research Network at CIESIN, Columbia University in the USA.

Dr. Idun has authored books and articles within the field of Gender, Trade and Environment. She has a keen interest in rural development, refugee protection and poverty alleviation. She is passionate about promoting rural development, refugee protection and poverty alleviation in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific regions.