Desmond Appiah

Biography

In the last 25 years, Desmond has worked in Europe, the United States of America and across the West African sub-region with various industries, non-governmental and parastatal organizations as well as development partners to design and develop progressive management systems that support long-term sustainable development goals.

He is currently the C40 City Advisor for Accra and has successfully led the development and launch of the City’s first Climate Action Plan, compatible to the tenets of the Paris Agreement as part of Deadline 2020 and is the Advisor on Resilience and Sustainability to the Mayor of Accra.

Prior to his current role, he was Accra’s Chief Resilience Officer and led the development of the City’s first Resilience Strategy under the 100 Resilience Cities (100RC) program with Rockefeller Foundation
In Europe, he worked with blue-chip manufacturing enterprises to develop and implement strategies for proactive management in meeting environmental, health and safety standards and manufacturing quality specifications. He also led initiatives to meet governmental standards on the Climate Change Levy targets which further aided and improved the energy use mix requirements and standards set for beverage manufacturing industry sector.

In the United States, he worked on initiatives that promoted improved environmental compliance with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations in Region III, supported by the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP). The program initially started in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was later rolled out across EPA Region IV from the 2008 academic year in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.

In Ghana, he had been a training and capacity building resource person on quality, health, safety and environmental management courses for clients in various sectors including universities and colleges, manufacturing, service providers, UNDP, WANGO and governmental institutions especial