James is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, and a fellow at the Penn Institute for Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania, USA. He also served as the Resilient Advisor to the former Mayor of Accra from 2017 to 2020, where he led the city in the development of the Accra Resilient Strategy. One of the initiatives in the Strategy – engaging informal waste collectors in the waste management chain, won the C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropies Award in 2019. His research focuses on the development of local economies to improve the quality of life of residents in local and rural communities, and urban informality in its multiple dimensions ― economy, settlements, livelihood, waste, and trade. He has been involved in the development of government policies in Ghana – National Local Economic Development Policy, and National Decentralisation Policy and Strategy. Dr Mensah is a graduate of the National Institute for Development Administration, Thailand, and the University of Ghana.