Jacob Amoako
Manager, REDD+ Government and Technical Coordination
Dr. Jacob Amoako serves as Manager, REDD+ Government and Technical Coordination for the Africa Region in Verra’s Program Development and Innovation Department.
Jacob previously worked with the Forestry Commission of Ghana starting as the geographic information systems officer to a focal point for measurement, reporting, and verification for the REDD+ process. He helped set up most of the requirements of the Warsaw Framework such as the Forest Reference Level, the National Forest Monitoring System, and the National REDD+ Strategy.
Jacob brings considerable expertise in stakeholder engagement, REDD+, forest mensuration, and carbon accounting. He has worked on various programs and projects including the premier REDD+ program of Ghana dubbed the Ghana Cocoa REDD+ Program which has received results-based payment under the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank and the Ghana Shea Landscape Emission REDD+ Project in the northern Savanna landscape of Ghana funded by Green Climate Fund.
Before departing the Forestry Commission, Jacob supported the development of the registration and monitoring documents for Ghana using The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) of the Architecture for REDD+ Transaction under which Ghana signed an Emission Reductions Payment Agreement (ERPA) with Emergent Forest Finance Accelerator Incorporated (Emergent), a US-based non-profit organization that serves as the convener and coordinator of the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition.
Jacob has been the lead for the land category of Ghana’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report by managing the estimation of emissions from the land part of the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land use (AFOLU) sector. As a member of the Roster of Experts on the UNFCCC for Ghana, Jacob has participated in the technical analysis of biennial update reports (BURs), including any technical annexes, from developing country Parties.
Jacob holds a Ph.D. in Climate Change and Landuse from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana, a Master of Science in Applied Agricultural and Forestry Sciences from the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resource Management also from KNUST. Jacob is based in Accra, Ghana.