Dr. Letitia Eva Takyibea Obeng, FGA
10 January 1925 – 23 March 2023
Governing Board Member and HEF Trustee
After CHEC’s first international conference on human ecology in Malta in 1970, a think-tank in Ghana to look at the long-term ecological changes produced by the Volta Dam project was initiated by Letitia Obeng, an outstanding practical field biologist and international science manager.
Letitia was the first Ghanaian woman to obtain a degree in zoology (from the University of Birmingham, UK) and the first to be awarded a Ph.D. (from the University of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine). She has been described as "the grandmother of female scientists in Ghana".
Letitia Obeng worked as a parasitologist and hydrobiologist and was a Senior Program Officer of the United Nations Environment Program. Before joining UNEP she was Project Co-Manager of the Volta Lake Research Project (Obeng, 1973, 1977). During the period 1965-1974, she was the Director of the Institute of Aquatic Biology, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Ghana. From 1960 to 1964 Dr Obeng was on the research staff of the National Research Council and Ghana Academy of Sciences, and previously she was a Lecturer at the College of Science and Technology in Kumasi (1952-1959). She was Chair of the Global Water Partnership an international network of over 2,800 organizations in some 160 countries supported by 13 Regional and over 80 Country Water Partnerships – from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2012. She had extensive experience in water and sanitation service delivery.
During the 25 years she spent at the World Bank, Obeng also worked on or was responsible for sustainable development areas such as water resources management, agriculture and rural development, social/community development, environment, environmental health, waste management, urban development and growing capacity. She also held managerial and director positions in the Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean regions, and at a corporate level, Director, Office of the President, while at the World Bank. Dr Obeng was a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (President 2007-8), a Fellow and Silver Medallist of the Royal Society of Arts, and Consulting Expert to the Rachel Carson Trust Fund for the Living Environment. CHEC was very fortunate to have such an outstanding, global leader of women in science as a member of the Governing Board from 1971 to 1987 and as Trustee of the Human Ecology Foundation from its inception in 1985 until her death.
Key writings on the Volta Lake in Ghana and other issues
Obeng, L. E. (1973). Volta Lake: Physical and biological aspects. Geophysical Monograph Series, 17, 87-98.
Obeng, L. (1977). Should dams be built? The Volta Lake example. Ambio, 46-50.
Obeng, L. E. (1983). Progress of Science in Africa—in Tradition, Culture and Religion Progress, in Ganelius, T. (ed) Science and Its Social Conditions: Nobel Symposium 58 Held at Lidingö, Sweden, 15–19 August 1983: 23-32.
Obeng, L. E. (1992). The right to health in tropical agriculture. Outlook on agriculture, 21(4), 255-262.
With kind thanks to Ian Douglas
14 November 2023