Beatrice Akua Abrekna Duncan Esq.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Beatrice Akua Abrekna Duncan was called to the Ghana Bar in 1988, on attaining her LLB from the University of Ghana Law School and Qualifying Certificate from the Ghana School of Law. Her academic pursuits continued with an LLM in women’s human rights from Georgetown University and PhD from the University of Birmingham.

Following professional engagements at the Asuogyaman District Assembly, Ghana Legal Aid Board, Sam Okudzeto & Associates and as head of the secretariat of the Structural Adjustment and Participatory Review Initiative of civil society, Government of Ghana and World Bank, she subsequently continued her professional career at the United Nations where she served in different capacities in child rights, human rights, gender and rule of law at UNICEF, UNECA and UN Women at national, regional and global levels.

Her focus has been on legislative reforms, constitutional reforms and judicial reforms, with research interests revolving on women in agriculture, women’s property rights and violence against women and children. Her publications have included Women in Agriculture in Ghana; Access and control over land in the Volta Region of Ghana from a gender perspective; Cocoa, marriage, labour and land in Ghana: Some matrilineal and patrilineal perspectives; Changing Access Rights in Some Cocoa Growing Communities in Ghana; Why and How Constitutions Matter for Advancing Gender Equality: Gains, Gaps and Policy Implications; and Controversies in Paternity: Who is a Child’s Father under Ghanaian Law? More recently, she produced a handbook on achieving equality before the law in the Commonwealth for UN Women, World Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Beatrice is a Chevening scholar and a Fellow of the Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa. She is currently leading on compiling the firm’s flagship publication on: A Gender Lens on Ghana’s Journey in Constitution-Making and Constitutional Realization. With a Synthesis of the African Experience and Examples from Other Jurisdictions.