Story by: Mabel Adorkor Annang
The University of Ghana School of Law has celebrated the successful completion of a four-year collaborative project on ocean governance in partnership with the Department of Marine and Fishery Sciences.
The project’s objectives focused on capacity building in the law of the sea and ocean governance, academic collaboration through teaching, conferences, fellowships, and publications, as well as strengthening Ghana’s national ocean governance framework.
Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and implemented in collaboration with the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea (NCLOS), at the University of Tromsø, the initiative began in 2021 and has now been extended at no cost until June 2026.
The project underscores the importance of sustainable marine resource management, ensuring that Ghana’s oceans serve present needs without compromising the future.
Speaking at the closing event, project leaders noted that the project has formed the foundation for the launch of a new academic journal dedicated to ocean governance and transformed into a permanent centre to continue advancing research, policy, and institutional collaboration.
The Norwegian Ambassador to Ghana, Dr John Kvistad, lauded the efforts put in to ensure the success of the project despite Norway’s funding winding down.
The project coordinator, Professor Francis Nunoo said, “the project so far has contributed to academic programs, we have run and demystify the law so that people can come and do LLM programs so many of them. We have built the capacity of public sector officials, have held conferences on stakeholder dialogues where we had quite a number of countries participating both physically and online. We have had research and publications, had policy engagements and national discussions on ocean governance, recently we contributed to the blue economy policy for Ghana and today we are not just ending the project cycle but we have to move on into the future.’’
A senior lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law Dr. Godwin Djokutu, added that “this is a flagship project by the university of Ghana School of Law which are implementing with the collaboration of our internal partners being the department of marine and fishery sciences and our external collaborators being the Norwegian Center for the Law of the sea at the Arctic University in Norway. Which funding is running out by the Norwegian agency for development Corporation, NORAT and they have been gracious enough to sponsor us for the last four years, starting from 2022 to 2025, so essentially, we have done 4 years.”
He added that while Norway’s funding is winding down, the project’s ultimate goal is to transition into a Center for Ocean Governance at the University of Ghana.
Participants called for active participation in shaping the future of ocean governance in Ghana and beyond.
