African Development Expert to Open Lecture Series at Yale

Kwesi Botchwey, development advisor at the Harvard Institute for International Development, will present the first talk in the Yale Center for International and Area Studies' Council on African Studies lecture series. He will discuss "Growing up a Young Pioneer" on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 4-5 p.m. in Room 203 of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The series is free and open to the public.

Kwesi Botchwey, development advisor at the Harvard Institute for International Development, will present the first talk in the Yale Center for International and Area Studies’ Council on African Studies lecture series. He will discuss “Growing up a Young Pioneer” on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 4-5 p.m. in Room 203 of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The series is free and open to the public.

Mr. Botchwey, a graduate of the University of Ghana and the Yale and Michigan, Ann Arbor, law schools, was Ghana’s Minister of Finance from 1982 to 1995. In that capacity, he spearheaded a pioneering program of economic reform and transformation in sub-SaharanAfrica.

Over the years Mr. Botchwey has been widely recognized in international development circles as a leading advocate of African economic reform and development. He is a member of the advisory boards of a number of African research and development assistance institutions, including the Overseas Development Institute and the Overseas Development Commission, the African Economic Research Consortium and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has chaired the Economic Committee of the Washington-based Global Coalition for Africa since its inception five years ago, and is also the current chair of the executive board of the African Capacity Building Foundation in Harare. He was a member of a Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons that toured world capitals in 1994 to facilitate the conclusion of the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations, and in June 1996 was a member of a small group of international experts who reviewed the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – OECD – study on the “Globalization and Linkages to 2020: Challenges and Opportunities for OECD Countries.”

Mr. Botchwey is a special advisor to the U.N. Special Initiative on Africa and consults for the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, and the International Monetary Fund – IMF. He is currently a member and coordinator of a team of academics from Oxford, Yale and the University of Amsterdam, appointed by the IMF to conduct the first review of its loan program, Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility.

The next talk in the series will be on Tuesday, Oct. 28, when John Saul, professor of political and social science of Atkinson College, York University, Canada will speak on “Whatever Happened to African Socialism now that we really need it ? Some Recollections and Reflections.”

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Media Contact

Gila Reinstein: gila.reinstein@yale.edu, 203-432-1325