Kufuor Scholar Aaron Atimpe has won the London School of Economics’ Africa Dissertation Prize for the 2020/2021 academic year.

Aimed at encouraging and celebrating outstanding fieldwork and research on Africa, the Master's Dissertation on Africa Prize recognises the year's most innovative and significant dissertations that further understand the continent.

Aaron Atimpe’s dissertation on the “Long-term Impacts of State Institutions on Norms of Tax Compliance: Evidence from the Asante Kingdom in Ghana” won the prize.

The dissertation looked at the long-term impacts of centralised institutions on norms of compliance. It investigated the development and evolution of the institutional and governance structure of the Asante Kingdom.

The study concluded that residents in the Asante Kingdom have higher propensities to comply with rules and norms than others because they live under a king’s authority.

“This study is very important because the legitimacy and authority of the state and its institutions are hinged on the level of compliance citizens accord them. Understanding what influences norms of compliance is therefore very important,” he explained.

Mr Atimpe was given the prize after he was awarded a distinction for his master's dissertation by the LSE’s Department of International Development.

“Beyond fulfilling my master's degree requirements, I felt a certain sense of personal attachment to this work. It gave me a better appreciation of how African systems and context can help explain many critical global phenomena.

"For me, it is about decolonising knowledge. Winning this award seems to be a confirmation of how much knowledge and creativity can come from Africa,” he observed.

Mr Atimpe says his participation in the Kufuor Scholars Program (KSP), a leadership and mentorship program established by Ghana’s former President John Agyekum Kufuor, helped propel him to win the prize.

“Beyond the mental toughness that KSP gave, the idea of my study setting came from my KSP experience. The first time I ever had a close personal interaction with the institutions and governance systems of the Asante Kingdom was through the Kufuor Scholars Program,” he noted.

“When we were first inducted into the program, the former president took us to the Akwasedae festival of the Asantes. It was my first real experience of the Asante culture, and I fell in love with it.

"That got me reading about its history. So when I needed an ideal setting for my dissertation, the Asante Kingdom came to mind naturally, and as it would turn out, it was an excellent choice,” he added.