George B.N. Ayittey, Ph.D.

Dr. Ayittey is an internationally renowned scholar on Africa and its emerging markets. He is a Distinguished Economist at American University in Washington, D.C. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg (Canada) in 1981.

He was nominated in 1987 for The Africa Prize for Leadership by The Times of London, became a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University in 1988, and a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation in 1989. Dr. Ayittey has written several books on Africa including, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for its Future (January 2005), The Blueprint for Ghana's Economic Recovery (1997), and Africa Betrayed (1992), which won the H.L. Menken Award for "Best Book for 1992". A frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, Dr. Ayittey's articles have appeared in The New York Times, The CATO Journal, Journal of Defense and Diplomacy and the Foreign Trade Review among others.

Dr. Ayittey has served as a consultant to the World Bank, and USAID, and lectured at the IMF, United Nations Development Program, and the US State Department. He can be heard often on NPR, Voice of America (Straight Talk Africa), BBC World Service and has been a guest on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, CNN Crossfire, and the nightly news shows of NBC, CBA and ABC.