Festus Asaaga

Festus is an environmental social scientist whose research focuses on advancing our understanding of the interdependence and synergies between human, animal, and ecosystem health with a goal of improving policy outcomes for safeguarding livelihoods, health, and well-being across different socio-cultural, political, and economic contexts.

His research is interdisciplinary and revolves around three broad inter-linked areas: agriculture, health, and environment, with climate change as an underlying cross-cutting theme particularly in developing contexts. Under the three themes, he specifically focuses on the political ecology of environmental health risks — particularly endemic and emerging zoonotic disease vulnerability within a 'One Health' systems paradigm, as well as land tenure systems and sustainable resource management and climate change adaptation. 

Festus leads the social science components of three interdisciplinary One Health projects. He employs empirical mixed-methods and co-production approaches to understand the complex socio-ecological, cultural, political, and economic drivers and systems of land and environmental (health) risks, as well as governance challenges, science-policy interfaces, and contextually appropriate interventions towards sustainable, inclusive, and equitable resource governance and resilient futures. His previous DPhil (PhD) research at the University of Oxford examined the dynamics of land tenure and Sustainable Land Management in Ghana.