Samuel Gariba is the Executive Director (ED) of Youth Without Borders Ghana and also serves as a member of the Board of Directors. Previously, he served as the Director of Programs and Projects responsible for the planning and implementation of the programmes, projects, and initiatives of the organisation. This was after he had served as the Regional Coordinator for Ashanti Region where he saw to the activities and programme implementation in the region.
Gariba holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in History from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Ghana and currently pursuing MPhil Historical Studies in the same university. He also has a Certificate of Merit in Digital Marketing from Ghana India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT and a host of capacity-based training certificates in research, governance, policy and youth work.
Gariba has over 10 years youth leadership experience cross-cutting training young people in governance, research, policy, advocacy, youth activism, community engagement, academic and career development, among others. As a Project Officer for Centre for the Development of People (CEDEP) between 2013 and 2017, he co-developed training curriculum used to train young people, assembly members, unit committee members, trade associations, political party actors and other actors of local governance in public financial management cycle, capital project implementation and monitoring. He played lead roles in the implementation of government’s Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability under the auspices of the World Bank as well as Ghana’s Strengthening Accountability Mechanisms (GSAM) and Reacting to Early Warnings and Response Data in West Africa (REWARD) both sponsored by USAID. The impact of his training activities was applauded by a joint evaluation by National Peace Council and University of Massachusetts’ Department of African Studies in 2016 as having contributed to youth participation in capital projects implementation, improved equitable service delivery and the mitigation of election violence in the identified hotspots in Ashanti Region. This was concluded from his training of two thousand and two hundred (2,200) local governance actors and approximately another one thousand two hundred and fifty (1,250) young people in project initiation, budgeting and contracting, execution and monitoring and evaluation.
Gariba has played consulting roles for ActionAid Global Platforms (MS TC DC Tanzania) under ToT in Political Facilitation Programme, University of South Denmark under the Global Health Programme and Beyond the Pivot (Hong Kong University) under the Go to Africa Summer Volunteer Programme. He has also conducted varied research in governance and education as well as youth and child development for UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP, IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Oxfam in Ghana, Innovations for Poverty Action, Education Watch Ghana, Defence for Children, Kanko and Associates, PPAG, SNV Ghana, STAR Ghana, among others. This comes on the heels of wide range of capacity building and involvement in national policy formulation including Ghana’s youth parliament and particularly the 2022 National Youth Policy where he served as a member of the Thematic Working Groups of the National Technical Committee.
This, coupled with several volunteer endeavours, constitute a great asset of knowledge and experience in the space of youth development. His background also exudes capacity in policy influencing, advocacy and data management.
Angela Asante is the Director of Human Resources and Administration of Youth Without Borders Ghana, responsible for overseeing the day-to-day general administration, human resources, welfare, and management issues of the organization. Previously, she served as the Head of Projects within the directorate of programs and projects where she oversaw the successful execution of projects and initiatives of the organisation.
Angela is an Urban Planner by Profession and has over 8 years’ experience in urban planning, public health, and social science research. She is also a youth and community development advocate. Presently, she is the Head of the Operations Unit of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) in the Ashanti Region. In her current role, she is responsible for the planning and implementation of all modules of the Youth Employment Agency in the Ashanti Region. She coordinates the activities of all the 47 Metropolitan, Municipal, Districts and sub-metros in the Region.
Prior to her current role, Angela worked as a research assistant with the Bureau of Integrated Rural Development. During this period, Angela worked on research and development-oriented projects for international and local organisations. Including the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), USAID, ACDI/VOCA, International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), among others. She has helped develop her leadership, intercultural communications, maintain confidentiality and ability to multi-task proficiently.
Angela is a 2015 Commonwealth Shared Scholar awarded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) to study masters’ degree in the UK. As a commonwealth scholarship alumnus, she volunteers as a CSC mentor where she provides commonwealth scholars with advice and support during their studies to help them gain the knowledge and skills required in their chosen field and area of study. Angela has experiences in youth development and advocacy, leadership, community resilience initiatives, democratic governance and accountability, and economic empowerment for young people. She is a 2019 Alumnus of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), a US Department of State sponsored leadership programs. She has served as a speaker and panellist for several conferences and seminars. She has been a UN online Volunteer since 2014 and has participated on several projects. She is a Co-founder of Girl-Child Concern Ghana (GCC-Gh) and she has co-led many projects to provide comfortable shoes, sanitary towels and provisions to girls 10 rural communities within the Ashanti Region.
Angela holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc Hons) degree in Development Planning from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi Ghana and a Master of Science (MSc.) degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom (UK). She is currently pursuing a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree in Health Systems Research and Management at the KNUST. Angela Asante hopes to gain knowledge on the use and management of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) to help better the health system in Ghana. Angela also holds certificates in Disaster preparedness (University of Pittsburgh), Energy Sector Strategies to Support Green Growth (The World Bank Group), Budgeting and Scheduling Projects (University of California, Irvine), Climate Change (University of Melbourne).
