Achieving Growth through Economic Integration

Martin Ziguélé was Prime Minister of the Central African Republic (CAR) from 2001 to 2003. He is currently the president of the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People and the party’s candidate for the upcoming 2010 presidential elections.

 

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Mr. Ziguélé served cumulatively as Finance and Budget Minister. From 2000 to 2001, he was the CAR’s National Director for the Bank of Central African States (BEAC). Prior to that, Prime Minister Ziguélé spent almost twenty years as a professional in the insurance and reinsurance industry with CICA-RE and SIRIRI, both in Central Africa and globally.

 

Mr. Ziguélé has spoken on numerous occasions abroad and is one of Central Africa’s most acclaimed voices on issues of international financial relations and regulations, economic capacity building, investment management in developing countries, and the promotion of good governance. 

 

Prime Minister Ziguélé graduated from the University of Bangui (CAR) with a degree in English Literature and holds a M.A. in Insurance and Actuarial Studies from the International Insurance Institute of Yaoundé (Cameroun).

 

Dr. Oshikoya is the Director-General (DG) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI).  The DG/CEO of WAMI is appointed by the Authority of Heads of State and Government of member countries of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) on the recommendations of the Convergence Council of Ministers and Governors of Central Banks.  The DG is the Chairman of Management Board of WAMI, and a member of its Governing Board comprising the Governors of Central Bank of member states.

 

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Oshikoya was Chief Economist of Africa Finance Corporation. He has also been Director of Research and Country Operations Manager at the African Development Bank, where he spent over 16 years, and Economic Consultant at the World Bank. He has served as member of Board of Directors of the East African Development Bank, Uganda; African Capacity Building Foundation, Zimbabwe; Secretariat for Institutional Support for Research in Africa, Senegal; and the East African Regional Technical Assistance Center, Tanzania. He has served as member of the Nigeria 2025 Scenario Project; and of the Policy Support Group of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), which includes several CEOs in the private sector.

 

A Commonwealth Scholar, Dr. Oshikoya has a PhD and M.A. degrees in Economics from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada; and a B.Sc. (First Class Honors) degree in Economics from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.

 

Dr. N. Calleb Weggoro is a Director at the East African Community Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. He is a member of numerous international associations in both natural and social sciences and has written several papers on regional integration.

 

After graduating from Dresden Technical University (Germany) with a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Economics in 1985, he joined the Government of Tanzania and worked as a senior officer in charge of research and development in the Ministry of Industries and Trade, SADC Industry and Trade Coordinating Directorate.

 

He obtained his Doctorate in Economics from Free University Berlin (Germany) in 1995 and joined in 1997 the newly re-launched East African Cooperation as Head of Economics. He was elevated to Director of Productive and Social Sectors in 2007, covering nine major sectors responsible for economic and social development.

 

Ms. Aidoo is Chief Executive of Caswell Capital Partners, LLC, a Wall Street-based merchant bank. She began her career as an investment banker in 1987 with Goldman, Sachs & Co., and left in 1991 to start her own advisory and investment firm. Her clients have included sovereign governments, global corporations, and large multilateral institutions. Of particular note, she developed and managed a landmark $500 million asset backed trade finance program for the PTA Bank, the regional bank serving COMESA, co-marketed by Goldman, Sachs & Co. This deal was historic in its structure and received the highest possible short-term credit rating from Standard & Poor's and First Investor Service. More recently, Ms. Aidoo has been responsible for sourcing and co-managing investment opportunities for a joint venture with a NY based hedge fund.

 

Ms. Aidoo has been honored for her business accomplishments and philanthropy as a board member of the following institutions: co-chair of Harvard Law School’s Class of 1987 20th Reunion Committee, WNYC, the City of New York's public radio station group chaired at the time by Mrs. Billie Tisch, President Clinton's Transition Team, responsible for covering the Federal Reserve System of the US, and as a member of the President’s U.S. Trade Advisory Committee, the US-South Africa Business Development Committee, the Constituency for Africa, and the 2001 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute which emphasizes values-based leadership in business.

 

Ms. Aidoo was nominated by her peers to the Governing Council of the Ghana Stock Exchange until 2004. She was a founding board member of the African Women's Development Fund and an Advisory Board member of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University. She currently serves on the following Advisory Boards: the Africa House at New York University, Serengeti Capital (a private sub-regional investment manager, based in Accra, Ghana), and the Women’s Media Center co-founded by Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem.

 

Ms. Aidoo has been a television contributor for MSNBC and CNN, and is a producer of award winning feature films and Broadway plays. She has been profiled in two books and quoted in major business publications on investment matters including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Financial Times and Black Enterprise. Ms. Aidoo graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors from Rutgers College in 1984, and from Harvard Law School in 1987.

 

 

 

Timothy S. McCoy is Vice President for Member Services at The Corporate Council on Africa (CCA). Established in 1993, CCA is at the forefront of strengthening and facilitating the commercial relationship between the United States and the African continent. CCA works closely with governments, multilateral groups and business to improve the African continent's trade and investment climate, and to raise the profile of Africa in the US business community. 

 

In his capacity as Vice President, Member Services, Mr. McCoy is responsible for overseeing the organization’s membership recruitment and retention efforts, as well as its communications, marketing, information technology and research activities.

 

Earlier, Mr. McCoy served as CCA’s director of marketing and public relations and as its director of international business programs. He has organized trade missions to Algeria, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa, and has developed programming to improve South African businesses’ capacity to conduct commerce with the United States. Mr. McCoy worked in 2002-2003 on behalf of CCA in the secretariat of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa in Lusaka, Zambia, where he worked to address non-tariff barriers to the export of African agricultural products to the United States.

Before joining CCA, he served as senior program officer for West and Central Africa at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). While there, Mr. McCoy designed civic engagement programs and on-the-ground training for grassroots organizations across French-speaking Africa. He also served as an observer of numerous first-ever multiparty democratic elections across Africa. Most notably, he was an official observer of the historic 1994 South Africa elections. Under the leadership of former President Jimmy Carter, McCoy also served as an international observer to the 1999 presidential elections in Nigeria and the flawed 1993 presidential elections in Togo.