How Edward Akuffo’s curiosity sparked new international relations

The man in the river handed Edward Akuffo his fishing rod, urging him to make the catch.

It was a busy fall day on the Vedder River in 2011, located in Chilliwack, B.C., roughly 80 kilometres east of Vancouver. Dr. Akuffo, who had recently moved from Alberta to work as an assistant professor in the University of the Fraser Valley’s political science department, was eager to establish himself in the community and accepted an invitation from a colleague to try fly fishing.

For hours, Dr. Akuffo observed his colleague and had conversations with two nearby fishermen, asking them about their rod, what it takes to hook a fish and reel it in. One of the men, who had already caught his daily limit of salmon, told Dr. Akuffo he had another 20-pound spring salmon on the line.

“Do you want to bring it in and take it home?” he asked.

Dr. Akuffo grabbed the rod. He steadied his feet on the rocky river bed and lifted the rod to the sky. He remembers beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. Eventually, he pulled in the salmon, brought it home for dinner, his children calling him a hero, says Scott Sheffield, a professor in UFV’s history department who was the one that invited Dr. Akuffo fishing that day.

“On his first day fishing, he was fighting a 20-pound salmon and managed to land it,” Dr. Sheffield says. “It’s emblematic of him.”

Fishing is far from the only time Dr. Akuffo, now the head of UFV’s political science department, has shown an interest in doing something new.

In 2012, he wrote the first book ever on Canadian foreign policy in Africa, a project that helped pave the way for Canadian engagement with Africa and the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the African Union.

It was a book born out of curiosity, a trait that was instilled in Dr. Akuffo at a young age.

Growing up in Akropong, Ghana, Dr. Akuffo spent a lot of time with his grandparents. His mother, a nurse, had to go back to work one month after Dr. Akuffo was born, due to maternity leave laws. So, under the watchful eye of his grandfather, he was encouraged to explore his village.

“Whenever I set my eyes on something, I just do it.”

“Any time I tried to do something, he would tell [my family], ‘let him do it,’” Dr. Akuffo says, no matter if that activity involved chasing chickens, playing in the sand or collecting sticks.

That mentality stayed with him as he aged. Especially when an activity is hard, and potentially foreign to him, Dr. Akuffo has a strong internal drive to get the job done, regardless of the obstacles. It’s one of the many traits he passes along to his students: hard work and determination lead to extraordinary accomplishments.

“Whenever I set my eyes on something, I just do it.”

In the 1990s, when he started studying political science at the University of Ghana, Dr. Akuffo was fascinated by the work of the Canadian International Development Agency, an organization that built schools, provided support for farmers and drilled boreholes for drinking water among other work in his home country. [Editor’s note: in 2013, the agency was merged with the federal department of Foreign Affairs].

“There was no single month, and I can’t exaggerate, or week, that you wouldn’t hear about the Canadian International Development Agency in the news,” Dr. Akuffo says. “That got me asking questions like why? Why does Canada spend its tax dollars in faraway places like Ghana?”

Following his undergraduate degree, Dr. Akuffo moved to Canada in 2002 — first going to Brock University for a master of arts, and later the University of Alberta for a PhD in philosophy and international relations — where he made it a priority to analyze Canada’s work in Africa, which dates back more than 50 years.

At the time, most academic literature focused on Canada’s relationship with South Africa, other specific regions on the continent, or peacekeeping missions from the Canadian point of view, which constructs a belief that Africa is poor and conflict-ridden, he says.

It was a realization that surprised Dr. Akuffo, who longed to write in-depth studies of how peacekeeping missions related to Canadian foreign policy and use research to explain why Canadians were sending their tax dollars to Africa.

“We have a responsibility as an academia, especially those in the field of international relations, to look into those relationships because now we can’t afford to ignore that relationship,” says Dr. Akuffo.

“A strong taste for curiosity is what drives me.”

“The African continent that Canada was operating on in the 1990s is not the same continent,” Dr. Akuffo says, pointing out that globalization will encourage trade and investment between Canada and Africa, a continent that has 30 per cent of the world’s critical minerals and where 60 per cent of the population is below the age of 25. “Now, when we are spending tax dollars, it’s not in that ‘distant place of Africa.’”

Despite recently renewing its focus on foreign affairs in Africa, and releasing a 45-page draft for a framework on partnerships in Africa, Canada does not have an official strategy for the continent.

Related research is still sorely lacking in academia, says Dr. Sheffield, who agrees that studies have historically focused on peacekeeping in Africa or foreign aid. He points out that Dr. Akuffo’s work — examining Canada’s historical development and security policies and juxtaposing them with its efforts in Africa — adds a nuanced, multi-dimensional approach to Canadian-African relations.

“That’s a big part of why Edward’s work is so critical, because he’s filling a void,” says Dr. Sheffield, who will have frequent debates with his friend and colleague about global affairs.

The sentiment is also shared by Colter Louwerse, one of Dr. Akuffo’s former students.

“A lot of academics struggle to do that, like, ‘Where am I going to contribute something new?’” Dr. Louwerse says. “To carve out a space for himself and say, ‘I’m going to be the guy on this topic,’ he really effectively did that.”

Dr. Akuffo, who won the school’s research excellence award in 2023, and recently collaborated with the German embassy in Ottawa to create an African strategy, is quick to credit his peers for the recognition.

“You cannot claim success in these areas. You can only claim building relationships, friendships, collegiality with the people who have been part and parcel of the work I do,” he says.

His next project aims to show how Canada’s maritime operations in Africa connect to peacekeeping. Dr. Akuffo is also looking at security cooperation between the continent and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

No matter where his studies take him in the future, he believes that research helps people understand society and produce new ideas. Years ago, on the Vedder River, he may not have come up with a new way to catch a fish. But hours of observing another man’s passion paid off in another new skill.

“A taste,” Dr. Akuffo says, “a strong taste for curiosity is what drives me.”