Dr. K.Y. AMOAKO
President of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET)
K.Y. Amoako led the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) from 1995-2005 at the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Under his leadership the ECA was transformed to more effectively serve African policy makers, to amplify the African voice internationally, and to influence African partners. He has emerged as an influential advisor to African leaders, ministers and other senior policymakers on various areas including macroeconomic policies, international trade, regional integration and good governance. And he advocated for and led the conceptualization of key principles of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and other pan-African and regional initiatives.
Mr. Amoako has served alongside leading development experts and political leaders and on high-level international commissions and task forces, addressing the development prospects of Africa and many of today’s central global issues. He is Chair of the Commission for HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, convened by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and was a member of the Commission for Africa established and chaired by Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was also a member of the Global Information and Infrastructure Commission, the World Bank Institute’s Advisory Council, and the Taskforce on Global Public Goods co-chaired by former President Ernesto Zedillo. Previously he served on the Commission on Capital Flows to Africa and on the World Health Organization’s high-level Commission on Macroeconomics and Health chaired by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs.
Prior to ECA, Mr. Amoako was Director of the Education and Social Policy Department at the World Bank providing strategic leadership for the Bank’s programs on poverty reduction, education, gender, labor markets, and social protection. He was a Distinguished African Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC, in 2006. He obtained his Ph.D in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and was awarded a Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa, by the Addis Ababa University in 2003, and a Doctor of Letters degree, honoris causa, by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, in 2005, both in recognition of his contribution to Africa’s development. Mr. Amoako was selected in July, 2007 by an influential US magazine Vanity Fair as one of two individuals who have done more to move Africa’s economy forward than any.
Mr. Amoako has recently established the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) in Accra, Ghana to promote high-quality policy analysis and advisory services to African governments with the objective of achieving long-term sustained growth and transformation of African economies. ACET is in response to two institutional challenges to African development: the need to improve the capacities of African governments to formulate and implement informed and sustainable economic policies; and, the need to increase the ownership of and accountability in the development process among African governments.