What makes monetary union work? Thinking beyond the Euro to West Africa

Is there an optimal governance structure for the West African Economic and Monetary Union? In this panel discussion, Kako Nubukpo, Mthuli Ncube and Chris Adam discuss the economic and political challenges of a monetary union.

Speakers:

Professor Christopher Adam

Christopher Adam is Professor of Development Economics in the Department for International Development. His current research focuses on the macroeconomics of low-income countries, in particular those of Africa; monetary economics and public finance; and growth and structural change in low-income countries. He is Lead Academic for the International Growth Centre (IGC) programme in Tanzania, and an occasional Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as member of the DFID-IMF research program on the macroeconomics of low-income countries. From 2003-05 he served as external Macroeconomic Adviser to the Policy Division at DFID and continues to represent DFID as Vice Chair of the African Economic Research Consortium.

Professor Mthuli Ncube

Mthuli Ncube is Professor of Public Policy at Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, where he teaches and researches in the areas on macroeconomics, finance, development economics, political economy, and health economics. He is on the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum on “Poverty and Economic Development” and on the Advisory Council for World Economic Forum (WEF) on Sustainable Infrastructure. Some of his recent books include: Monetary Policy and the Economy in South Africa (Macmillan 2013); Quantitative Easing and its Impact on US, UK Europe and Japan (2013); Africa’s Middleclass (2014); African Financial Markets and Monetary Policy (2009); and The Oxford Companion of the Economics of South Africa (co-edited, Oxford University Press, 2015).

Dr Kako Nubukpo

Kako Nubupko is a Global Leaders Fellow (GLF) at GEG. Born in Togo, he has a PhD from the University of Lyon (France). He has worked at the Head Office of the West African States Central Bank (BCEAO) in Dakar, Senegal, and has held senior positions at the Institute of Sahel in Bamako, Mali, and at the School of Management in Lyon, France. He is managing director of the Centre Autonome d’Etudes et de Renforcement de Capacités pour le Développement au Togo (CADERDT) that has just been set up by the Government of Togo with the support of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). He is also former Head of Economic Analysis and Research Division at the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), and Head of the Department of Post-graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Lomé in Togo. He is also a Research Fellow at The Agricultural Research Centre of International Development (CIRAD). His publications cover a range of issues related to central banking and finance in West Africa, and the economics of cotton industry in that region, among others.