The new ambassador to the United States from Ghana, Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah, who previously served as Ghana’s ambassador to Japan, Australia, and three other countries, presented his credentials to President Donald Trump on July 21, 2017, succeeding Joseph Henry Smith, who represented Ghana in Washington since September 2014.
Born December 15, 1942, in Kumasi, Ghana (then a British colony), Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah graduated Prempeh College in 1962. He went on to earn a B.A. in Geography at the University of Ghana – Legon in 1965, an M.S. in Geography at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in 1968, and a PhD in Geography at Indiana University in 1972, with a dissertation entitled, “Socio-economic regions in the Louisville ghetto.” He also co-authored “Some comparative aspects of the West African Zongo and the Black American Ghetto.”
Upon his return to Ghana, Adjei-Barwuah became a lecturer and research fellow at the University of Ghana, while also working as a part-time television host with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1972 to 1975.
In 1975, Adjei-Barwuah was named executive director of the Ghana Tourist Board, which is located in Ghana’s capital and largest city, Accra. He stayed there for eight years, until 1983.
Sometime after 1983, Adjei-Barwuah left Ghana and went to live in the United Kingdom. He worked as a community liaison officer in Kent, England, from 1987 to 1988. He also earned a certificate in counselling from the Center for Advancement in Counselling in London in 1989.
Adjei-Barwuah worked in the field of adult education, first as a senior lecturer at Bexley College in London from 1988 to 1991, and as head of faculty access and development at Hackney Community College from 1991 to 1993. From 1993 to 2001, he was lead adviser at the Learning and Skills Development Agency, a publicly-funded organization that supported continuing education in England.
A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which is Ghana’s center-right party, Adjei-Barwuah returned to Ghana in 2001, not long after his party’s candidate for the presidency, John Kufuor, won the December 2000 presidential election. Kufuor soon appointed Adjei-Barwuah to a plum diplomatic post—ambassador to Japan, with concurrent accreditation to Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore. Adjei-Barwuah served seven years in the post, leaving temporarily in September 2007 in order to run for President of Ghana, and left permanently before Ghana’s 2008 presidential election, which the NPP lost.
With his party out of power once more, Adjei-Barwuah was out of work and in hot water, accused in October 2009 of misappropriating funds donated by a Japanese chocolate manufacturer. Adjei-Barwuah denied the allegations and suffered no legal consequences, despite the fact that the opposing party was in power.
Returning to the U.K. in 2013, Adjei-Barwuah worked as co-chair of Charles Chanan, Ltd., an executive search firm in London, from 2013 to late 2016.
Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah and his wife, Dinah Barfuor-Barwuah, have four children.
