Ekwow Spio-Garbrah

Ekow Spio-Garbrah (born 1953) is a citizen of Ghana and currently the CEO of The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) based in London. He is one of Africa's pre-eminent civil servants, and an authority on mass communications who has held several high profile positions in the field. He is a former Minister of Communication of the Republic of Ghana, one-time Ambassador of Ghana to the United States and Mexico, Minister of Education, Minister responsible for Mines and Energy and a member of UNESCO’s Executive Board in Paris. He served in the cabinet during the democratic regime of Jerry John Rawlings between 1994 and 2000. Spio-Garbrah is a member of the board of directors of South Africa Telekom and Vodacom. He is also member of the International Advisory Board of the African Press Organization (APO).

As a Minister of Communication of Ghana, from 1997 to 1998, Dr Spio-Garbrah initiated, developed and implemented policies and programmes that supported the increasing convergence of telecommunications, broadcasting, the Internet, publishing, news media and postal services, all of which were under his supervision. Concurrently, as chairman of the National Communication Authority, he had responsibility for regulating all aspects of the telecom, Internet and broadcasting sectors. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah was also in charge of the Public Education Committee which successfully re-introduced the VAT to Ghana after a disastrous first attempt in the early 1990’s had left scores of protesters people dead. The VAT today mobilizes billions of cedis for socio-economic and infrastructure development in Ghana. Whilst Education minister from 1998 to 2002, Spio-Garbrah was credited with the creation of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), which currently mobilizes over $50 million each year domestically for educational sector infrastructure and student assistance programmes. The GETFund law has been widely praised as one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in Ghana’s history relating to the education sector.

As Ambassador to the United States, from 1994 to 1997, Dr Spio-Garbrah was noted for his success in rebuilding Ghana’s image across the USA, including organising an unprecedented eight-city investment promotion programme for Ghana’s President in the USA. As a result partly of the successful bilateral programmes he executed, Ghana became the first country to be visited by President Clinton during his famous five-country Africa visit in 1998 and is now a recipient of the Millennium Challenge Account.Before joining the Ghana government in 1994, Spio-Garbrah was Head of Communication at the seventy-seven member-nation African Development Bank from 1991 to 1994, where he directed the $33 billion bank’s global corporate and marketing communications and acted as institutional spokesman. Earlier, from 1988 to 1991, he had performed similar functions as an External Relations Officer at the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank affiliate, in Washington.

Ekow Spio-Garbrah previous experience included working as a mortgage banker in New Jersey, as an award-winning sales executive with Southwestern Bell, and as chairman of the Middle East Africa Group within the international public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton in New York. In that capacity, from 1979 to 1985, he provided investment, export and tourism promotion counsel to the governments of Indonesia, Turkey, The Netherlands and Austria, financial relations advice to the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, Credit Agricole of France, UBAF-Arab American Bank, and energy sector intelligence to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

In December 2006 Ekow Spio-Garbrah contested for the flagbearership of Ghana's leading opposition party, the National Democratic Conngress (NDC). He came in second to Professor John Atta-Mills, former vice president of the country.