Dr Clement Sefa-Nyarko is Senior Lecturer in Security, Development and Leadership in Africa and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. He is both an academic and international development practitioner with over a decade of experience designing, managing and leading research, policy and development initiatives across Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. His research intersects security, development, leadership, and natural resource governance. His current research explores questions of justice in critical minerals governance and energy transitions, examining how mineral extraction, green industrialisation and low-carbon transitions shape state-society relations, development trajectories and social equity.

Clement's expertise includes methodological innovation, research design and programme evaluation across diverse social and political contexts, particularly in Ghana, across Africa, Australia. His research and policy engagement span natural resource governance, political theories of the state, leadership, and decolonial approaches to knowledge and governance. He has published widely for both academic and non-academic audiences.

Clement obtained his PhD from La Trobe University, Australia, where his doctoral research critically examined the resource curse thesis through political theory perspectives. He also holds master's degrees in Population Studies and in Conflict, Security and Development from the University of Ghana and King's College London respectively.

Research

• Justice in Critical Minerals Governance and Energy Transitions
• Natural Resource Governance and Resource Politics
• Security, Development and Leadership in Africa
• Political Theories of the State
• Institutional Design and Governance Reform
• Decolonisation and Decolonial Theory
• Peace, Security and State-Society Relations
• Research Methodology, Evaluation and Methodological Innovation
• Social Protection and Inclusive Development

Clement's research contributes to interdisciplinary debates across four interconnected areas: security and peacebuilding, critical development studies, natural resource governance (especially critical minerals), and leadership and institutional transformation in Africa. His current research focuses particularly on the governance of critical minerals and the justice implications of global energy transitions.

Through his UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, he investigates how emerging demands for critical minerals reshape political authority, development pathways and questions of justice within mineral-producing societies. His scholarship combines qualitative and quantitative approaches and is informed by decolonial and critical theoretical perspectives.

He is particularly interested in how institutions, leadership and state-society relationships shape governance outcomes in contexts of political transition, democratic consolidation and resource extraction. Drawing on his background in demography, Clement also explores the interactions between population dynamics, development, peace and security across African contexts.

Teaching

Clement teaches across themes relating to security, development, leadership, governance and research methods. His teaching has included:

• Leadership and Society (7YYFN037)
• Global Leadership Peace and Society (7YYFSGA3)
• Research Methods in Global Leadership (7YYFSGA5)
• Natural Resource Governance (7YYFN030)

His teaching integrates academic scholarship, policy engagement and practitioner experience to support critical and applied learning.

PhD supervision

Clement welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:

• Justice in Critical Minerals Governance and Energy Transitions
• Natural Resource Governance and Resource Politics
• Security, Development and Leadership in Africa
• Political Theories of the State
• Institutional Design and Governance Reform
• Decolonisation and Decolonial Theory
• Peace, Security and State-Society Relations
• State-Society Engagements and Open Governance
• Research Methods and Evaluation
• Social Identity, Inclusion and Citizenship

Further details

See Clement's research profile