Ghanaian labour leader elected to FSC's Board of Directors

The FSC International has elected to its Board of Directors Mark Asante Ofori, General Secretary of Ghana’s Timber Woodworkers Union (TWWU). Representing the social chamber south from 2021 to 2025, Ofori replaces Rulita Wijayaningdyah of KAHUTINDO-Indonesia.  

BWI welcomed Ofori’s contribution to the FSC board of directors. “We warmly welcome the election of Mark to the FSC board. His long track record of fighting for workers’ rights and strengthening the coalition by ensuring the indigenous people communities’ participation is surely an added value to our collective effort to secure social requirements within the FSC system,” BWI General Secretary Ambet  Yuson said. 

Ofori is an eexperienced trade union leader known for his skills in facilitating constructive social dialogues and negotiations among employers’ organisations, governments, environmental NGOs and indigenous people communities.

He has academic and field credentials on forest management and certification, and quality control standards.  He is committed to help achieve the sustainable development goals, specifically on sustainable forest management, poverty eradication, equality, decent work, occupational health and safety, climate change, consumption and production patterns and finally global partnerships.

On his election to the FSC board, Ofori thanked BWI affiliates and allied organisations that supported his candidacy.  

“Even as TWWU General Secretary, my comrades at the GABON Union UTB TP BSP expressed their faith on me as their designated representative in FSC which enabled me to run as the workers’ candidate. My election to the board demonstrates the power of our unity and solidarity. I vow to help strengthen FSC’s presence in Africa with TWWU in the lead,” Ofori said. 

BWI also thanked outgoing FSC board member Wijayaningdyah’s contribution to the council. Wijayaningdyah was an FSC board member from 2014 to2021, and board chairperson from 2016 to 2017. 

“For the last 8 years, Rulita was a reliable and consistent consolidator of workers’ issues in the FSC system. The fact that she enjoyed the remarkable support of FSC’s three chambers is a clear testament of her capacity to build bridges and coalitions to attain true sustainability in the forest sector,” Yuson said.

The FSC is an international non-profit, multi-stakeholder organisation established in 1993 that promotes responsible management of the world's forests.

With almost 50,000 chain of custody certifications, 1,806 forest management certificates and 230,000,000 hectares of certified forest areas, BWI sees the FSC as an important venue to realise its decent work agenda.