W. Paatii Ofosu-Amaah

Mr. W.Paatii Ofosu-Amaah has been a Special Adviser to the President of the African Development Bank (ADB) since September 2008.

Prior to joining the ADB, Mr. Ofosu-Amaah worked for 29 years at the World Bank during which he held several senior positions, the last being Vice President and Corporate Secretary of the World Bank Group from 2003 through 2007. Prior to that, he served for 23 years in the World Bank’s Legal Vice Presidency, where he held the positions of, inter alia, Acting General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel, Chief Counsel, Africa Division, Legal Adviser, Environmental Affairs and as a senior operations lawyer in several countries and regions in the world. Before joining the World Bank, he worked as an associate in the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell and as Legal Officer in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome.

Mr. Ofosu-Amaah’s contributions over his career at the World Bank include, as Chief Counsel for Africa, overseeing the legal aspects of more than 500 projects financed by the Bank in Africa, working on a variety of complex and flagship regional projects and writing the constitution of the African Capacity Building Foundation and other legal instruments related to its establishment. He was also a pioneer, together with other colleagues, of legal and judicial reform projects in Africa. As Legal Adviser Environmental Affairs, he represented the World Bank in the negotiations of global environmental treaties from 1986-1991 and contributed to the establishment of the Global Environment Facility and the development of various environmental and social-related policies of the World Bank. As Acting General Counsel, he was the principal legal officer of the Bank, providing legal and policy advice to the Management and the Board of the Bank. As Corporate Secretary, he assisted in the selection of the last two Presidents of the World Bank, contributed to the improvement of the effectiveness of its Board and dealt with several other critical issues during his tenure.

He has been Visiting Professorial Fellow at Queen Mary College, London University. He serves on the Board of the Nelson Mandela Institution and the International Law Institute (Uganda) as well as of other not-for-profit corporations. He has published and written on a variety of subjects, including on selected legal aspects of combating corruption, governance-related issues, environment management and negotiation issues, capacity building and legal and judicial reform, particularly in Africa.

He has law degrees from the University of Ghana and Harvard Law School.