Patrick R. D. Hayford

Patrick Reginald Dennis Hayford (born 7 August 1950) is a Ghanaian retired diplomat, international affairs director and administrator. Hayford served for 40 years as a diplomat in the Ghana Foreign Service including serving as Ghana's Ambassador to South Africa. Hayford had his tertiary education at the University of Ghana, Legon receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1972 and at the University of Nairobi completing with a postgraduate diploma in international relations in 1980.

Ambassador He actively participated in commonwealth missions and activities whilst in the foreign service, serving for almost two years as Ghana's Acting High Commissioner to United Kingdom from 1996 to 1997. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Observer Mission for South Africa's second multiparty General Elections in 1999.

Hayford later joined the United Nations (UN) and was appointed in 1999 to serve as the Director for African Affairs in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, where he served for 6 years, from 1999 to 2005. In February 2020 he was one speaker for a public lecture at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy at the University of Ghana. He spoke on the topic "Strategies for Advancing the Interests of African Countries within the United Nations System." He was also one of the keynote speakers at the Celebratory Symposium held in honour of Kofi Atta Annan, by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the symposium he made profound statements that the best way to eulogise and remember Kofi Annan was;“striving for the things he believed in such as feeding the poor, educating children, empowering women, among others” He was also a member of the Komla Dumor Memorial Foundation, a foundation set up to sustain the legacy of the late Ghanaian BBC journalist Komla Dumor, by pursuing plans he had for promoting the ideals that he stood and worked for.