The Alaska World Affairs Council Presents

Dr. George Ayittey

Distinguished Economist at American University, in Washington, DC. (USA)
Recently selected as one of Foreign Policy's 2009
"World's Top 100 Global Thinkers"

 

"Why Africa is Poor"

Friday, 29th January 2010 – Hilton Hotel
Doors open at 11:30 p.m. - Program begins at 12:00 p.m.
For Reservations
RSVP by Wednesday, 27th January to the Alaska World Affairs Council
by telephone 276-8038 or by email to AlaskaWorldAffairs.org .
Lunch Program $20 for Members - $25 for Non-Members - $6 for Coffee Only

With Support from:

Dr. George Ayittey is a Distinguished Economist at American University, in Washington, DC. (USA) where he teaches Development Economics and Africa’s Economic Crisis at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Prior to joining American University, he taught at Wayne State College in Nebraska and Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. In recognition of his scholarship on Africa, he was made a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California in 1988 and a Bradley Resident Scholar at the Heritage Foundation in 1989. He joined American University in 1990.

Dr. Ayittey is also the President of the Free Africa Foundation, which he established in 1993 in Washington, D.C., to serve as a catalyst for change in Africa. The URL is: http://www.freeafrica.org. The Foundation’s mantra is: “Africa is poor because she is not free.” As such, the Foundation actively promotes political, economic and intellectual freedom.

Dr. Ayittey has written several highly-acclaimed book on Africa, including Africa Betrayed (St. Martin's Press, 1992); The Blueprint For Ghana's Economic Recovery (Africana Publishers, 1997); Africa In Chaos (St. Martin's Press, 1998), Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa’s Future (Palgrave/McMillan, 2005), and Indigenous African Institutions (Transnational Publishers, 2006). Africa Betrayed won the 1993 H.L. Mencken Award for "Best Book for 1992." (The award is named after the American journalist who championed personal freedom).

He has written numerous articles on Africa and the Third World, which have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail (Canada), The Times of London, USA TODAY, The CATO Journal, World Development, Humane Studies Review, Journal of Defense and Diplomacy, Journal of Economic Affairs, Journal of Economic Growth, The World & I, Crisis, and Foreign Trade Review. Many of his articles have been syndicated for worldwide distribution and some have been reprinted in Reader's Digest, International Herald and Tribune, Jeune Afrique Economie, and papers in Africa -- recently in The Sowetan (South Africa) and Daily Observer (The Gambia). He has been cited in the American Economic Review, The New York Times, Scientific American, and by Paul Harvey, William Raspberry and others.

Dr. Ayittey has appeared frequently on several radio talk shows, and TV programs including the BBC, Voice of America, (Canada AM, CBS "Nightwatch," ABC "Nightline," Christian Science Monitor TV, MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, C-SPAN, and CNN.

He has testified before many US Congressional committees and the Senate of Canada about the Third World Debt Crisis, Foreign Aid to Africa and South Africa. He has served as a consultant to several organizations, including the World Bank, US AID, and International Council on Metals and the Environment (ICME). In addition, he has given lectures to various organizations, institutions and universities, including the National Bar Association, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the US State Department, US Foreign Service, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). He has been invited by U.S. presidents to the White House on three occasions (Dec, 1990, March 2006, and Sept 2008) for important state functions. In 2008, he was listed among the “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by the Foreign Policy magazine.

Dr. Ayittey was born in Ghana, West Africa, where he obtained all his primary education and B.Sc. (Economics) from the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1966. He left Ghana for Canada to pursue post graduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, where he was awarded an M.A. (Economics) in 1971. After a brief teaching stint at the University of Ghana, he returned to Canada to secure his Ph.D. at the University of Manitoba in 1981.