Meet Victoria L. Hamah: Founder of POWA and Former Deputy Minister for Communications

Dr. Victoria Lakshmi Hamah is a Public Administration researcher, political actor, and gender advocate whose work sits at the intersection of governance, representation, and structural inequality. She previously served as Deputy Minister for Communication of the Republic of Ghana, having been appointed in 2013 by His Excellency John Dramani Mahama. Her tenure in public office, combined with her subsequent academic and advocacy engagements, reflects a sustained commitment to interrogating and reshaping the institutional foundations of governance in Ghana and beyond.

She holds a PhD in Public Administration and Policy Management from the University of Ghana. Her doctoral research, titled “Gender Asymmetry in Ghana’s Parliamentary Committees: A Critical Analysis of Women’s Representation and Legislative Influence,” offers a rigorous examination of the institutional, cultural, and patriarchal structures that condition women’s participation and influence within legislative spaces. Her work advances critical debates on gendered power relations, demonstrating how formal institutional arrangements and informal norms converge to reproduce asymmetries in political representation.

Dr. Hamah’s research interests span gender and governance, legislative studies, social policy, and inequality, with an expanding focus on digital governance, artificial intelligence, and the political economy of technological transformation. Her scholarship is grounded in an interdisciplinary lens, drawing connections between structural power, policy outcomes, and evolving socio-economic systems.

She is the Founder and President of the Progressive Organisation for Women’s Advancement (POWA), an advocacy platform dedicated to advancing women’s participation, visibility, and influence within political and public life. Through POWA, she has led and contributed to policy dialogue, research collaborations, and public engagement initiatives, including partnerships with the University of Ghana’s Centre for Social Policy Studies.

Dr. Hamah’s academic and professional formation is rooted in the University of Ghana, where she earned a BA in Political Science with Philosophy and an MA in Social Policy. She also holds an Executive Certificate from the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She has benefited from international academic exposure through the Erasmus+ Credit Mobility programme at Mendel University in Brno. In addition, she participated in the Bergen Summer Research School at the University of Bergen, where she obtained certification in Artificial Intelligence in Education.

Beyond academia and policy, Dr. Hamah has maintained an active presence in media and public discourse, with a career spanning television and radio as a presenter and producer. Her engagement with civic and political life dates back to her student leadership, where she served as National Women’s Commissioner of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS). Over the years, she has contributed to national and international conversations through public lectures, policy forums, and opinion writing on governance, gender, youth, and the political economy.

A deep spiritual orientation further informs her intellectual and public journey. She studied under the guidance of Swami Ghananand Saraswati, whose teachings have shaped her philosophical outlook on truth, discipline, and service.

Across politics, academia, advocacy, and media, Dr. Victoria Hamah represents a distinctive synthesis of scholarship and practice. Her work continues to engage critically with the structures of power that define contemporary governance, while advancing a normative vision of inclusive, equitable, and transformative public leadership.