Prof. (Mrs.) Sarah Darkwa, FGA, Professor of Food Science, has called for a comprehensive national approach to addressing the nutritional needs of Ghana’s ageing population, stressing that nutritional assessment of older adults should go beyond body weight and Body Mass Index (BMI). She made the call while delivering the 2026 Annual Lecture in the Sciences of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) on Thursday, 24 September 2026, on the theme “Unlocking the Secrets of Healthy Aging: A Deep Dive into Elderly Nutrition.” She emphasised that ageing brings physiological, social and economic changes that can significantly affect nutritional status and overall health.
Annual Lecture in the Sciences
Prof. (Mrs.) Ibok N. Oduro, FGA, Professor of Postharvest Technology at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has called for increased investment in indigenous food research, value addition and policy support to unlock the potential of Africa’s traditional crops.
She made the call while delivering her Inaugural Lecture in the Sciences at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) on Thursday, 11 June 2026, at the Academy’s Secretariat in Accra. During the lecture, Prof. Oduro described Africa’s indigenous foods as a “hidden harvest” with immense potential to address food insecurity, malnutrition, climate challenges and economic development across the continent.
Ghana is unlikely to meet SDG 6 by 2030, particularly targets 6.1 and 6.3 which focus on universal access to safe and affordable drinking water and improving water quality, respectively. Prof. Samuel Agyei-Mensah, FGA, raised this concern during his inaugural lecture on the topic, “Flavours of Spatial Diversity in Drinking Water Access in Ghana,” held on October 17, 2024, at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) in Accra.
OFORI-SARPONG AKUFFO, FGA, MSME Professor of Minerals/Metallurgical Engineering Grace Ofori-Sarpong Akuffo (Mrs) is a Professor of Minerals Engineering, and currently…
About the Speaker Prof. Grace Ofori-Sarpong Akuffo, FGA Professor of Prof. (Mrs.) Grace Ofori-Sarpong Akuffo, a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of…
In 2023, the Academy held its 3 flagship programmes as follows:
1. The 56th J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures took place from 20 – 22 February 2023 on the theme “African Politics and the Mystical Realm: Religion and Governance in Ghana” by Rev. Professor J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, FGA and President of the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon.
Food and Public Health are inseparable. We talk about food in terms of safe food, healthy food, junk food, unhealthy food, and ultra-processed food. The healthiness of food (or lack thereof) is influenced by multiple factors including food marketing, food fraud, food policy, food politics, food justice, food democracy, and food environments. Of equal importance are the impacts of unhealthy food on human health and planetary health. Such impacts include hunger, and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – obesity, hypertension, stroke, ischemic heart disease, and diabetes.