Newsletter Issue #6 G

 

NEWSLETTER ISSUE #6/2018      

TRADE PhD student thrives at WTO under Doctoral support programme
 

According to the old adage, ‘you cannot become international by staying at home’. Several Master’s and PhD students studying through TRADE have been fortunate enough to deliver papers at international conferences or conduct part of their studies abroad. One of Prof Derick Blaauw’s PhD students, Emmanuel Orkoh, has been a participant in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doctoral support programme and recently completed the last chapter of his thesis under the guidance of Dr Robert Teh, Chief of the WTO’s Economic Modelling and Quantitative Analysis Unit.

It is not every day that a postgraduate student from South Africa has the chance to spend a few months at the WTO headquarters in Geneva, learning from some of the best minds in trade policymaking circles. Emmanuel Orkoh, who holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cape Coast (Ghana), was selected for the WTO’s Doctoral support programme earlier this year after having embarked on his PhD studies in 2017. The programme involves a number of deserving PhD students from developing countries spending six months at the WTO (from May to October) completing their thesis under the guidance of a WTO mentor. Emmanuel found the experience to be extremely valuable as he was exposed to the WTO’s vast information resources while also being able to tap into the expertise of several WTO staff members. His thesis is titled: ‘Essays on trade openness, wage, poverty and intra-household time allocation in Ghana’, which he submitted for examination in early November. The future is looking bright for Emmanuel as the WTO has appointed him for a further 3-month period, until February 2019, after which we hope he will join the TRADE team as a post-doctoral fellow. 

The Master’s and PhD programme is one of TRADE’s flagship programmes, providing the opportunity for Honours and Master’s graduates to further their studies in a stimulating and supportive environment in one of three streams: Economics, International Trade and Agricultural Economics.

Related news

PhD for David Dyason

PhD student Lorainne Ferreira presents research at WTO Forum

 

Archive newsletters

Issue #5/2018

Issue #4/2017

Issue #3/2017

Issue #2/2016

Issue #1/2015