Robert K. A. Gardiner

rdf:langString Robert K. A. Gardiner

rdf:langString Robert K. A. Gardiner

rdf:langString Robert K. A. Gardiner

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rdf:langString right

rdf:langString #c6dbf7

rdf:langString Robert Gardiner in 1962

rdf:langString Establishment Secretary of Ghana

rdf:langString Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Housing of Ghana

rdf:langString Director of the Department of Social Welfare and Community of the Gold Coast

rdf:langString Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Operation in the Congo

rdf:langString Commissioner for Economic Planning of Ghana

rdf:langString Director of the Public Administration Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

rdf:langString Deputy Executive Secretary the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

rdf:langString Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

rdf:langString “He was one of the blackest Africans I have ever seen...His expression was wistful, yet purposeful, like that of a man with few illusions but determined not to be got down by his experience...He was the only man who at that stage had a real insight into the political and social structures of the country and who was bold enough to challenge the narrow policy of the university."

rdf:langString "I'm as much or more interested in Africanisation as any politician. But we have to get the right people. Most of these politicians see no reason why their relatives shouldn't be given jobs. I try to explain that the civil service is not a dumping-ground for party hacks. But many of them fail to see why it shouldn't be."

rdf:langString "Here we come, I think, to the crux of the misunderstanding that has led to so much rancour and so much bloodshed. For it has been the conviction — conscious and unconscious — of many colonizing powers that on the other side of the confrontation there is nothing. Too often have they failed to recognize that even the poorest people, even those whose way of existence is evidence of a complete inability to meet the challenge that nature poses to man, even people such as these can have their own dignity and can be jealous of it."

rdf:langString Ulli Beier on Gardiner during his tenure at the University College in Ibadan

rdf:langString Gardiner in A World of Peoples, 1966

rdf:langString Gardiner on Africanisation and political pressures faced by the civil service

rdf:langString Linda Charlotte Edwards

rdf:langString Adebayo Adedeji

rdf:langString October 1975

rdf:langString March 1961

rdf:langString May 1978

rdf:langString January 1962

rdf:langString August 1960

rdf:langString July 1961

rdf:langString May 1959

rdf:langString November 1960

rdf:langString Robert Kweku Atta Gardiner (29 September 1914 – 13 April 1994) was a Ghanaian civil servant, university professor, and economist who served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa from January 1962 until October 1975, and as the Commissioner for Economic Planning of Ghana from October 1975 until May 1978. Gardiner was born in 1914 in Kumasi, Gold Coast, into a family of successful merchants. After attending Adisadel College, he received his education in Sierra Leone and in the United Kingdom. Following the completion of his studies, Gardiner became a professor of economics at Fourah Bay College. From 1946 until 1948 he served as an area specialist for the UN Trusteeship Council. In 1949 he was hired as the first Director of Extramural Studies at University College in Ibadan, Nigeria. Four years later he returned to the Gold Coast to serve in the higher levels of the civil service. Following the country's independence as Ghana in 1957, Gardiner was appointed by Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah to be Establishment Secretary. The two had a tenuous working relationship as Nkrumah's idealism conflicted with Gardiner's practical style of administration. Following his dismissal in 1959, Gardiner accepted his nomination as Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). In 1960 civil war erupted in the newly independent Republic of the Congo and Gardiner became heavily involved in UN efforts to resolve the situation, serving as a mediator between various factions and as a close adviser to UN Secretary-General U Thant on the matter. In January 1962 Gardiner was appointed Executive Secretary of UNECA. In that capacity he oversaw the training of new African experts to staff the organisation and promoted economic development throughout Africa. Following his departure from the UN in 1975 Gardiner returned to Ghana to serve as Commissioner for Economic Planning. He resigned in 1978, his reputation as an economist damaged by the instability of the Ghanaian government. Gardiner then engaged himself in various academic capacities until his declining health forced him to retire. He died in 1994.