I will say the main difficulty is around funding, which is very limited. At my university, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, there is funding between USD2000 and 5000 to compete for annually and there is no national research fund, so most funded projects are supported by external donors.

Marian Asantewah Nkansah is a Ghanaian environmental chemist. Her research work focuses on finding solutions to environmental problems associated with levels and fate of toxic substances such as heavy/trace metals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in food, water, soil, rocks, sediments and other environmental samples. She also researches on the interaction of these pollutants with each other in the environment. In 2016, she became the first scientist to win the Fayzah M. Al-Kharafi Prize, an annual award that recognises exceptional women scientists from scientifically and technologically lagging countries.