Dany Franck A. Tiwa is a researcher with a broad disciplinary background. He holds a joint PhD in cultural and global criminology from the Universities of Hamburg (Germany) and Utrecht (Netherlands), and master’s degrees in sociology (University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon), conflicts studies (University of Lille 3, France) and migrations studies (University of Dakar, Senegal). He is the founder and director of the African Centre for Crime and Security Studies (ACCSS Africa), a Yaoundé-based think tank whose overall mission is to improve security indicators on the continent so that most African live their lives without fear of crime and conflicts.

Before joining the University of Basel, Dany taught for many years an elective course titled Justice in the ‘jungle’: crime, punishment, and justice in the post colony at the universities of Hamburg and Utrecht. He has published on topics as varied as vigilantism, climate change, organized crime, refugees, and the Covid-19.

Dany’s current research mobilizes ethnographic techniques to investigate the impact of climate change people’s aspirations and relations (with their mates, their neighbors, the state, the market, the global capital etc.) in Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo’s largest coastal city. More specifically, he seeks to document how various local actors including, architects, constructions companies, urban planners, authorities, dwellers etc. incorporate climate related security risks in their daily activities with the aim of complicating our understanding of notions such as vulnerability, resilience, adaptation etc.

Besides academia, Dany is also a development practitioner specialized in program and project evaluation. He has worked as international consultant for the UN, FAO, IOM, WHO, PBF, IDLO, GI-TOC and several others.