africa

Africa at a Fork in the Road: Taking Off or Disappointment Once Again?
Selwyn Capital. He is Chairman of the Board of the African Economic Research
Consortium—a network that develops economists in Africa and with which he has
been associated for the last 20 years—and Chairman of the Global Agenda Council
on Poverty and Economic Development (World Economic Forum). He holds a PhD
in Mathematical Finance from Cambridge University.
Léonce Ndikumana
Andrew Glyn Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Léonce Ndikumana is also Director of the African Development Policy Program at
the Political Economy Research Institute. He received the 2013 UMass Award for
Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity and was nominated
as Spotlight Scholar, also in 2013. He is a member of the United Nations Committee
on Development Policy and an honorary professor of economics at the University
of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He served as Director of Research and Operational
Policy at the African Development Bank, and Chief of Macroeconomic Analysis
at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. His research interests lie
in macroeconomics and economic development, with focus on external debt and
capital flight, financial markets and growth, macroeconomic policies for growth and
employment, and the economics of conflict and civil wars in Africa. He is co-author
of Africa’s Odious Debt: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent, in
addition to dozens of academic articles and book chapters on African development
and macroeconomics. He is a graduate of the University of Burundi and received
his PhD in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Yaw Nyarko
Professor of Economics, New York University
Yaw Nyarko is also the Director of the Center for Technology and Economic Development;
Co-Director of the Development Research Institute; winner of the 2009 BBVA
Foundation’s Frontiers in Knowledge Award on Economic Development Cooperation;
and Founding Director of New York University’s Africa House. A theoretical
economist, his interests include growth and development economics, human capital
theory, migration and brain drain studies, game theory, and learning theory. He
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