UMass Amherst Economist Léonce Ndikumana Nominated to U.N. Committee for Development Policy

AMHERST, Mass. – Léonce Ndikumana, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been nominated by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to serve on the U.N. Committee for Development Policy (CDP) in 2013-15.

 

The CDP is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It provides information and independent advice to the council on emerging cross-sectoral development issues and on international cooperation for development, focusing on medium- and long-term aspects. The committee is also responsible for reviewing the status of least developed countries and for monitoring their progress after graduation from the category.

 

Ndikumana says he is very pleased by the appointment. “I would like to thank the U.N. secretary general for nominating me to serve as a member of the Committee on Development Policy. It will be an honor to contribute my ideas to the decision making process at the highest level of the U.N. on key issues in economic development and international cooperation. I am grateful for the opportunity to leverage my experience in economic development analysis and practice to inspire and advocate for policies that improve people’s lives in developing countries.”

 

The Committee for Development Planning was established in 1965 as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Its original terms of reference were modified in 1998 and the committee was renamed the Committee for Development Policy (CDP).

 

Members of the CDP are nominated by the U.N. secretary general, in their personal capacity, for three-year terms, taking into account the need to have a diversity of development experience, including ecologists, economists and social scientists, as well as geographical balance, gender balance and a balance between continuity and change in the membership of the committee.

 

Ndikumana is the Andrew Glyn Professor of economics and director of the African Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass Amherst. He served as director of operational policies and director of research at the African Development Bank, chief of macroeconomic analysis at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Cape Town. He is an honorary professor of economics at the University of Stellenbosch.

 

He has contributed to various areas of research and policy analysis on African countries, including the issues of 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 earned his doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis.