Nana Ama Yirrah

Nana Ama Yirrah is a Land Economist, Development Policy Analyst and Gender Specialist with over 25 years of experience in land and natural resource governance, land policy research and policy advocacy and women’s land rights.

Nana Ama Yirrah is the Founder and Executive Director COLANDEF. She has great passion to demystify the land sector to help all land users have knowledge about how to navigate the land tenure landscape and she has dedicated herself to achieving this. To achieve this, she uses knowledge from her technical training as a Land Tenure Specialist with her expertise in development practice to develop simplified solutions that work for local communities but also meets legal requirements. At COLANDEF, she is responsible for providing overall leadership and direction for the organization and its programs. She oversees the development of the overall strategic direction for COLANDEF, manages the engagement with partners and leads the COLANDEF national policy advocacy agenda.

Over the past years of her work, Nana Ama has gained in-depth knowledge and expertise in facilitating multi-stakeholder processes, designing, and implementing customised land tenure solutions and training programmes, securing customary land rights, women’s land rights, among others. She also provides technical advice to different organisations and institutions in Ghana that are implementing projects that have land tenure dimensions. She has been a consistent advocate for gender sensitive land governance and land policy.

She also has extensive experience in Organizational Strengthening and loves to provide coaching to organizations and individual practitioners in the land sector.

In addition to her work at COLANDEF, Nana Ama also serves as a member of the Advisory Group for other projects that are led by organizations with similar goals. She has a great sense of commitment, excellence and dedication to work. She is the mother of three young adults and enjoys spending time with family and friends.