A member of the Bono ethnic group, George Benneh was born on 6 March 1934 in the small town of Jamdede, about a kilometre from Berekum on the then Gold Coast, now Ghana.
[1][2] His father was Isaac William Benneh, a Convention People's Party politician during the First Republic under the Nkrumah government, who served as the Minister for Rural Industries and the Member of Parliament for Berekum.
[3] During his childhood, together with his younger brother, Stephen, he assisted his mother in her trade and spent his school vacations helping out on a cocoa farm his family owned at Prusu.
[1][2] At the age of 14, while in Form Three, he led the Achimota Athletics Team to compete with Kings College, a notable secondary school in Lagos, Nigeria.
[1][2] As a university administrator, he served as the chairman of the Department of Geography and Resource Development, senior tutor of the Commonwealth Hall, Dean of the Faculty of Social Studies and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Director of Population Impact Project funded by the USAID.
[1][2] After the June 1979 and December 1981 coups d’état, both led by Jerry John Rawlings, he was jailed without trial by the junta on allegations of corruption.
He spent a total of ten weeks in prison before being set free by the coup leadership as military investigators had been unable to adduce any evidence of malfeasance.
[1][2][6] Benneh was the Team Leader of UNFPA Population Review and Strategy Development Mission to the Republic of Tanzania in 1991, member of the United Nations University Feasibility Team for the establishment of Research and Training Centre at Lucerne, Switzerland in 1998, and member of the United Nations University International Feasibility Study Group for Research and Training Centre on Nature and Human Security in Bonn, Germany in 2000.
[1][2] George Benneh received the United Nations Global 500 award at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 for his contribution to teaching and research in the fields of Population and Environment.
[21] George Benneh died of natural causes at his home in East Legon, Accra on 11 February 2021, twenty-three days short of his 87th birthday.
[22][23][24] A requiem mass for Benneh was held at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra before his burial in his hometown of Akrofro, near Berekum in the Bono Region.
[25][26] His funeral was attended by several dignitaries including the Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, former Foreign Minister, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, lawyer and traditional ruler, S. K. B. Asante and the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Jean Mensa.