Prof Forson, Joseph Ato

Joseph Ato Forson is an associate professor of Development Finance and Policy at the School of Business of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW). He is affiliated with the Department of Applied Finance & Policy Management and doubles as the current Graduate Coordinator of the Department. Previously, Forson served as the Head of Department and also as the Vice Dean of the School of Business. He is also a Liaison Officer for Trans Africa University College, Accra, where he has been instrumental in building the capacity of this affiliate University in line with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) guidelines, under the mentorship programme of the University of Education, Winneba.

Joseph holds a PhD in Development Administration (Management and Policy option) from the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), Bangkok, Thailand, and a Master of Economics (M. Econs) in Applied Finance from the Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University, China. He is an alumnus of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), where he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Development Planning (Policy option). Forson is an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Development Finance (CIDEF), a certified corporate member of the Ghana Institute of Planners (MGIP), and a member of the West Africa Research Association (WARA).

Prof. Forson advocates for liberal arts education, encouraging young scholars to build broad knowledge early and specialise later. He has published extensively across diverse but related research areas in peer-reviewed journals primarily indexed in SCOPUS, Web of Science and other relevant indexing and archiving sources. His work appears in prestigious journals published by leading publishers, including ScienceDirect, Wiley, Springer Nature, MDPI, SAGE, and Taylor & Francis. Notable journals include, but are not limited to, Discover Sustainability, Scientific African, International Journal of Finance and Economics, Sustainability, Journal of African Business, South African Journal of Economics, among others. Prof. Forson also serves on the editorial teams of respected journals and continues to serve as a freelance reviewer for major academic publishers.

Prof. Forson has also collaborated with TREND (an NGO) on a World Bank project focused on water and sanitation (WATSAN) in Kumasi, as well as with GIZ (formerly GTZ) on poverty profiling in partnership with Nkum Associates in Accra. Prof. Forson has facilitated several social intervention programmes, including the most recent, the Government of Ghana and NEIP Adwumawura programme. Forson is a proud recipient of several research grants, scholarships and fellowship awards and is currently working on the UKAID CCF Compatible project on electric 2-3 wheelers in Ghana. The AD Scientific Index lists him among the top 1000 scientists in Ghana and ranks him among the top 600 scholars.