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Leveraging Multipolarity: Assessing Economic Options for Africa

9th-11th October 2024 | African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Welcome to the 2024 African Monetary & Economic Sovereignty Conference

Convened by the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) and the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA)

The third Edition of the African Monetary and Economic Sovereignty Conference

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the New International Economic Order (NIEO). Alongside multiple debt, development, climate, and migration crises and a resurgence of large-scale wars and genocidal violence, there is a decline of Western hegemony, which the challenge posed by the emergence of the BRICS + makes visible. Although the United States, Western Europe, and Japan still dominate the Bretton Woods Institutions, whose legitimacy deficit is growing, they no longer have the global economic, industrial, and financial clout of yesteryear. This trend towards multipolarity, a rebalancing of international relations seems irreversible. The key question is to know what new or alternative options this multipolarity can offer countries of the South, Africa in particular. What economic opportunities could peripheral countries foresee in a world where the West no longer has the last word

The Third Edition of the African Monetary and Economic Sovereignty Conference, convened by the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) and the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA), aims to explore the economic opportunities open to the continent in the multipolar world that is taking shape, based on the lessons of history – past successes and failures – but also of a present fraught with multiple crises and diverse emergencies for which coordinated and rapid action is required.

Among the topics to be discussed are:

  • Addressing the current debt, development and climate crisis.
  • Domestic resource mobilization and illicit financial flows.
  • Lessons from the New International Economic Order: documenting successful and less successful experiences of delinking.
  • The BRICS + project: opportunities and risks for Africa.
  • Understanding the revival of industrial policy in Northern countries: prospects for Africa.
  • How to capitalize on the resurgence of pan-Africanist sentiment on the continent and in its diasporas.

Conference proceedings will be live-streamed, and a link will be circulated closer to the Conference date.

Concept Note - English
Note Conceptuelle - Français

Concept Note – English

Note Conceptuelle – Français

Agenda

9 October
10 October
11 October

Setting the Stage

9:00 – 09:30 Opening Session

  • Session Chair: Dzodzi Tsikata (Distinguished Research Professor, SOAS, University of London)
  • Welcome, Acknowledgements – Chair
  • Setting the Scene, Conference Context. Purpose and Expectations – Mrs. Souad Aden-Osman on behalf of CoDA and IDEAs
  • Opening Remarks by H.E Abdalla Hamdok, former Prime Minister, Sudan and Alt. Chair, CoDA Board

10:00 – 10:30 Key Note Address – President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Senegal (tbc)

10:30 – 11:00 Group Photo and Coffee Break

11:00 – 11:30 Intervention by Professor Jeffrey Sachs

  • Session Chair: Charles Abugre, Executive Director of IDEAs

11:30 – 12:30 High-Level Round Table: Multipolarity, the forthcoming FFD and Africa’s interests

  • Session Chair: Charles Abugre, Executive Director of IDEAs
  • Speakers: Semereta Sewasew (State Minister of Finance of Ethiopia), Albert M. Muchanga (AU
    Commissioner for Trade and Industry), and Andres Arauz (Economist and Former Ecuadorian Minister)

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch Break

13:30 – 14:30 Lessons from the New International Economic Order (NIEO)

  • Session Chair: CP Chandrasekhar (Professor of Economics, India, IDEAs)
  • Speakers: David Adler (Coordinator of Progressive International), Lumumba Di-Aping (Sudanese Diplomat), Guillaume Long (Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador)

14:30 – 15:30 Panel: Global Tax Justice for Africa: limitations, achievements and ways forward

  • Session Chair: Souad Aden-Osman (CoDA/AU High Level Panel on IFFs from Africa)
  • Speakers: Chérif Salif Sy (Senegalese Economist, Director of the Third World Forum),
    Ambassador Segun Apata (Member, AU HLP on IFFs), and Leonce Ndikumana (UMASS)

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:00 The Scope for Domestic Resource Mobilization in Resource Intensive Economies

  • Chair: Hamadziripi Tamukamoyo (Institute for Economic Justice, South Africa)
  • Speakers: Martin Abeles (Argentinean Economist, IDEAs), Redge Nkosi (South African
    Economist, IDEAs), Tetteh Hormeku (Third World Network, Ghana)

17:00 – 18:30 Feminist perspectives on Domestic Resource Mobilization

  • Session Chair: Dzodzi Tsikata (Distinguished Research Professor, SOAS, University of
    London)
  • Speakers: Agostina Costantino (Economist, Argentina), Mayada Hassanain (Sudanese Political Economist, IDEAs), Natalia Flores (Political Economist, IDEAs), and Emilia Reyes (Mexican Feminist, Gender Equity)

Addressing the Debt & Climate Crisis from a Development Perspective 

9:00 – 11:00 Developmentalism in an era of climate Change

  • Keynote address: Jomo Kwame Sundaram (Professor of Economics, former UN Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development)
  • Session Chair: Joab Okanda (African Manager – Global Gas and Oil Network)
    Speakers: Samaro Zinabu Rekiso (Ethiopian Economist, UNDP) and Ingrid Kvangraven
    (Economist, Associate Professor, Kings College)

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 – 13:00 Climate Change & the Financing of Ecological Transformation

  • Session Chair: Joe Ageyo (Editor-In-Chief Nation Media Group & PhD student)
  • Keynote Address: Fadhel Kaboub (Economist, University of Denison, President of the Global
    Institute for Sustainable Prosperity)
  • Speakers: Aby L. Sene (Environmental Social Researcher and Associate Professor at
    Clemson University), Howard Stein (Economist, Professor at Michigan University), and Farwa Sial
    (Economist, IDEAs)

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:00 Keynote Address: Martin Guzman (Former Minister of Finance of Argentina)

  • Session Chair: Adeyemi Dipeolu, Former Senior Economic Advisor to Nigeria President

15:00 – 16:00 Debt Restructuring

  • Session Chair: Adeyemi Dipeolu, Former Senior Economic Advisor to Nigeria President
  • Speakers: CP Chandrasekhar (Professor of Economics, India, IDEAs), Yan Liang (Economist,
    Professor at Willamette University), Horman Chitonge (Economist, Professor at the Centre
    for African Studies at the University of Cape Town)

16:00 -17.00: The State of the Ethiopian Economy

  • Chair: Charles Abugre
  • Speakers: Alemayehu Geda (Professor of Economics, Addis Ababa University) and Mizane
    Yohanne

Leveraging Multipolarity

9:00 – 10:30 Panel: De-dollarization and De-globalization: Opportunities and Threats for
Africa

  • Session Chair: Ambassador Lumumba Di-Aping
  • Keynote: Hippolyte Fofack (Parker Fellow, SDSN, Columbia University, Former Chief Economist, African Export-Import Bank)
  • Speakers: Andres Arauz (Economist and Former Ecuadorian Minister)

10:30 – 11:30 Monetary Integration and Delinking Strategies

  • Session Chair: Linwood Tauheed (Associated Professor, University of Missouri Kansas City)
  • Speakers: Ndongo Samba Sylla (Senegalese Economist, IDEAs), Kai Koddenbrock (Professor
    at Bard College Berlin), and Ibrahim Aïdara (Economist, Senegal)

11:30 – 12:00 Coffee Break

12:00 – 13:30 Panel: Rethinking Pan-Africanism in a World of Geopolitical Fragmentation

  • Session Chair: Souad Aden-Osman (CoDA/AU High Level Panel on IFFs from Africa)
  • Speakers: Amara Enyia (Global Black, Chair of the International Civil Society Working
    Group for the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, Chicago), Jemima Pierre
    (Professor of Global Race, University of British Columbia), Diallo Diop (Vice-President of
    PASTEF, Senegal, in charge of Pan-Africanism and memorial issues) Peter James Hudson
    (Associated Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia)

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch Break

14:30 – 15:30 Ending Unequal Ecological Exchange

  • Session Chair: Jemima Pierre (Professor of Global Race, University of British Columbia)
  • Keynote Address: Jason Hickel (Anthropologist, Professor at the University of Barcelona)

15:30 – 16:30 Projection of the documentary movie “Money ad Freedom. The CFA Franc
Story” by Mrs. Katy Léna Ndiaye, followed by a brief discussion

  • Session Chair: Kai Koddenbrock (Professor at Bard College, Berlin)

16.30 – 17.00 Wrap up, Conclusions, Take-aways

  • Speakers: Ndongo Sylla, Kai Koddenbrock, and Souad Aden-Osman

Speakers

  • Jomo Kwame Sundaram

    Senior Adviser, Khazanah Research Institute, Fellow, Academy of Science, Malaysia, and Emeritus Professor, University of Malaya

  • David Adler

    Political Economist & co-general Coordinator of Progressive International

  • Jason Hickel

    Economic anthropologist, Fellow of Royal Society of Arts and LSE, and Professor, University of Barcelona

  • Peter James Hudson

    Associate Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia

  • Andres Arauz

    Senior research fellow and expert in finance and macroeconomics, with government experience in Ecuador and international negotiations

  • Martín Guzmán

    Former Minister of Economy of the Republic of Argentina

  • Kai Koddenbrock

    Professor of political economy at Bard College Berlin

  • Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei

    Head of Programmes at the Third World Network-Africa, Member of the Working Group of Post-Colonialisms Today

  • Souad Aden-Osman

    Executive Director of the Secretariat for the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA)

  • Howard Stein

    Development Economist, Professor, The University of Michigan

  • C.P. Chandrasekhar

    Senior Research Fellow, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

  • Charles A. Abugre

    Ghanaian development economist, researcher, social activist. Executive Director, IDEAs

  • Mizanekristos Yohannes

    Senior Policy Consultant in international economic development, Consultant Moderator at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 

  • Agostina Constantino

    Researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina & a teacher at UNS

  • Martin Abeles

    Director of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)´s Office in Buenos Aires

  • Segun Apata

    Former Ambassador, Chairman of the Nigerian Bottling Company Ltd (NBC), Member of the National Council of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN)

  • Joab Okanda

    Africa Regional Manager at GGON | Pan African Climate, Energy & Development Expert

  • Ali Zafar

    Global development Economist and Author, UNDP

  • Natalia Flores Garrido

    Senior Program Officer for Gender and Economics in Latin America and the Caribbean at IDEAS

  • Rachel Mukamunana

    Senior Policy Advisor & Head of Country Reviews at The African Peer Review Mechanism

  • Redge Nkosi

    Executive Director at Firstsource Money, Monetary Reform International (UK)

  • Ibrahima Aidara

    Founder of the Public Policy Institute for West Africa, previously deputy regional director of Open Society–Africa & country economist at UNDP Senegal

  • Linwood Tauheed

    Professor of Economics & Director of the Center for Economic Information

  • Adeyemi Dipeolu

    Former Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters in the Office of the Vice‐President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

  • Alemayehu Geda

    Professor of Macroeconomics and International Economics, Department of Economics, Addis Ababa University

  • Zinabu Samaro Rekiso

    Economist, UNDCO/ UN Resident Coordinator’s Office – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  • Chérif Salif Sy

    Political Economist, Academic, Researcher and active in the non-political society. Coordinator of the Third World Forum (TWF) created by Professor Samir Amin

  • Abdalla Hamdok

    Former Prime Minister of Sudan

  • Dzodzi Tsikata

    Professor of Development Sociology, Director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS), the University of Ghana

  • Guillaume Long

    Politician, Historian, and Expert on Latin American Foreign Policy and Multilateral Initiatives

  • Yan Liang

    Professor at Willamette University, specialist in Post Keynesian-Institutionalist approach to international trade and finance, financial macroeconomics, and economic development (with a regional focus on China)

  • Ingrid Kvangraven

    Lecturer, Department of International Development at King’s College, London

  • Mayada Hassanain

    Researcher within the Feminist Economics project at the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ)

  • Horman Chitonge

    Researcher, Professor, Head of the African Studies Section, University of Cape Town

  • Jemima Pierre

    Professor of Global Race at the Institute of Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) at the University of British Columbia, Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class at the University of Johannesburg

  • Hippolyte Fofack

    Research Economist, leading the Macroeconomic and Growth Program at the World Bank Institute, founder of the Nelson Mandela Institution

  • Lumumba Di-Aping

    Ambassador and Deputy Head of the Sudan Mission to the United Nations

  • Hamadziripi Tamukamoyo

    Programme Co-Director at the Institute for Economic Justice 

  • Ndongo Samba Sylla

    IDEAs

  • Semereta Sewasew

    Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s State Minister of Finance for Economic Cooperation

  • Aby L. Sène

    Assistant Professor, Parks and Conservation Area Management, Clemson University

  • Fadhel Kaboub

    President, the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and Associate Professor of Economics, Denison University

  • Emilia Reyes

    Programme Director of Policies and Budgets for Equality and Sustainable Development, at the feminist Mexican organization Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work and Family

  • Amara Enyia

    Strategist, Public Policy Expert, Social Impact Professional

Live Recordings

9/10/2024

10/10/2024

11/10/2024