Gyan-Baffour was born in Wenchi in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. He attended the University of Ghana where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. He proceeded to Helsinki School of Economics in Finland where he obtained a Diploma in Economics. He later obtained his masters and Doctor of Philosophy degrees after enrolling at University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also has a Post-doctoral diploma from Harvard University.
George Gyan-Baffour was a professor of management at Howard University from 1993 to 2001.
Upon the election victory of the New Patriotic Party in Ghanaian general election in 2000, he returned to Ghana and was appointed by President John Kufuor as the Director General of the National Development Planning Commission in 2002. It was during this time that he established the first system for overseeing and assessing the rate of national development. He oversaw the development of the Coordinated Program for the Economic and Social Development of Ghana.
From July 2002 to December 2004 he was the Director General of The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) where he oversaw the preparation of the first Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (2003-2005) Paper.
He introduced the first Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism for assessing the progress of national development called the Annual Progress Report, which is still the monitoring and evaluation tool of the national development Agenda of Ghana. He supervised the preparation of the Coordinated Program for the Economic and Social Development of Ghana (2002-2012), which is a constitutional requirement of the President of the Republic of Ghana.
He led the team that prepared the first compact of the Millennium Challenge Account. Before he left for the USA for academic pursuit he worked at the Ministry of Industrial Science and Technology from 1974 to 1984 and rose to the rank of Senior Industrial Promotions Officer.
In December 2004, he contested and won the parliamentary election to become the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wenchi. He later became the Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning from March 2005 to December 2008.
Since January 2009 he is the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Wenchi Constituency. As an MP he has served on several committees. He has been a ranking member for the Trade Industry and Tourism Committee; a member of the Education Committee; a member of the Poverty Reduction Committee; and the acting Chairman of the Special Budget Committee.
He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Economists of Ghana. He was a member of various boards including the Bank of Ghana (2005-2008), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of Ghana (CSIR) from 2003 to 2005, and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) from 2003 to 2005.
He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in Industrial Relations; a Post Doctorate diploma from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government; an MA in economic policy from University of Wisconsin, Madison; a BSc. (Hons) degree in Economics from the University of Ghana.
