Dr. Lesley Hope is an agricultural economist with over 15 years of experience in active applied research in urban and rural agriculture with theoretical and practical expertise in socioeconomic, evaluation, market and gender studies. She has a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana and a PhD in International Development Studies from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
Before pursuing PhD in 2013, she worked with the International Water Management Institute where she was primarily involved in conducting socio economic research. Given her research background, she has extensive knowledge and experience in using both qualitative and quantitative research approaches and has coordinated a number of national and community level assessment. She has working experience in all regions in Ghana and Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. In the course of delivering her duties, she has collaborated with both local and international organisation among which include Ghana Irrigation Development Authority and the International Food Policy Research Institute. Further, she independently consulted for the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) where she mapped out target market segment for commercialization of a genetically modified rice variety as well as an identification of possible market and production entry barriers and opportunities.
Dr. Hope has built the capacity and supervised many students both graduate and under-graduates to successfully implement various projects.