African Studies Lecture Series at Yale

The African Studies Program of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies will host a Spring Lecture Series, “The Political Economy of Contemporary Africa,” on Tuesdays at 4 p.m. in Room 203, Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The first speaker will be Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), on Feb. 10. His topic will be “Geography and Economic Growth in Africa.” All talks are free and the public is welcome.

Sachs is the Galen Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He serves as an economic advisor to governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa, and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Development Program.

From 1986-90, Sachs served as an advisor to Bolivia, helping that country design and implement a program that stabilized inflation from 40,000 percent per year to the current rate of 10 percent. In 1989, he advised Poland’s Solidarity movement on economic reforms and then assisted Poland’s first post-communist government in the introduction of radical economic reforms. He led a team of economic advisors assisting Boris Yeltsin, helping Russia to deal with privatization, market liberalization, and international financial relations.

Sach’s current research includes international financial markets, emerging markets, global competitiveness, and debt management in developing countries. As director of HIID, he and his colleagues have produced several important global studies, including “A New Partnership for Growth in Africa,” released in Feb. 1997. This proposal has contributed to the reformulation of U.S. foreign assistance policies in Africa.

Sachs is the recipient of many honors, including membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Fellows of the World Econometric Society. He has published several books, including “Global Linkages: Macroeconomic Interdependence and Cooperation in the World Economy” (with Warwick McKibbin), “Macroeconomics in the Global Economy” (with Felipe Larrain) and “Poland’s Jump to the Market Economy,” among others, and over 100 scholarly articles.

Future talks in the series are as follows:

Feb. 24: Kwesi Botchwey, development advisor for the Harvard Institute for International Development, “The Political Economy of Policy Reform and Management in Ghana”;

March 24: Zephirin Diabre, fellow of the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, “From Revolution to Market –The Political Economy of Structural Adjustment in Burkina Faso”;

April 7: Dunstan M. Wai, acting technical manager, Capacity Building Technical Group for the Africa Region, World Bank, “Development by Design–World Bank Policy in Africa.”

For further information, contact the Council on African Studies at (203) 432-3436.