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Emmanuel Baba Aduku
Emmanuel Baba Aduku joins the PLUS Change project to represent Black and People of Colour (BPoC) and People with a Migration Background.
Emmanuel Baba Aduku is a public policy analyst, project manager, and international development practitioner. He has diverse experiences working in a public sector consulting firm, an international development agency, and a public policy think tank. Emmanuel´s areas of expertise span policy research, political economy analysis, strategy, programme and project development and implementation, knowledge management, and democratic institutions strengthening to mention a few. He is currently the Project Coordinator of the Geopolitics and Geoeconomics programme at the Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI).
What community or organisation are you representing in the project?
As an ambassador of change I will be representing the Black and People of Colour and People from Migration Background communities. These communities are marginalised and underrepresented in policy discourse and programmes throughout the European Union. I will be focusing on interfacing with organizations such as the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Initiative Schwarze Menschen Deutschland (ISD), Afro-Deutsche Akademischer Netzwerk (ADAN), Association of Students of African Descent, Deutschland (ASADD), and the Center for Integration and Migration.
What motivated you to apply to become an ambassador?
I am motivated to become an ambassador so that I can contribute to elevating the voices and needs of Black and People of Colour and People with a Migration Background. These communities are severely marginalized when it comes to land use policy and decision-making. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of strategic, policy, and decision-making processes of land use in Europe. Specifically, how these intersect with issues of biodiversity, climate change, and human well-being, and the wider drive for sustainability in Europe. Through participating in the project, I hope to acquire a more detailed understanding of the work done by the various project partners and build professional and personal networks for future collaboration. Finally, I hope to gain insights into the structural and personal barriers excluding Black and People of Colour, and People with a Migration Background from land use decision-making processes in Europe.
How does your work correspond with PLUS Change?
My current work involves programming and research on international cooperation within Europe and between Europe and the wider world. Within this broad remit I engage on issues on geopolitics and geoeconomics, political economy, migration, civic and political education, and public policy analysis. Thus, my current work provides many critical touchpoints with the PLUS Change project, especially as it relates to the three major issues of biodiversity, climate change, and human well-being. I plan to foster collaboration between PLUS Change and the communities I represent through serving as a bridge and communicating relevant outputs from the project to the communities I represent using various format such as presentations, blog or article writing, facilitating discussion sessions on the outputs from the PLUS Change project etc.
What are you looking forward to in the coming years?
I look forward to working with the PLUS Change project team to realize the ambassador engagement schedule. I am looking forward to the outputs that the project will generate and how these will be translated into policy and decision-making on land use in Europe. Particularly I expect to see new knowledge, tools, approaches, documented experiences, data, partnerships, and many more possibilities emerge from the project.