Léonce Ndikumana is Distinguished Professor of Economics and director of the African Development Policy program at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation, and an honorary professor of economics at the University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. He has held senior positions at the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. He graduated from the University of Burundi and earned a PhD in economics at Washington University in St. Louis.
He has published extensively on macroeconomics and African development issues, including capital flight, external debt, foreign aid, financial systems, growth and employment, and conflict and civil wars. His work has appeared in academic journals and scholarly books, including Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent; Capital Flight from Africa: Causes, Effects, and Policy Issues; and On the Trail of Capital Flight from Africa: The Takers and the Enablers (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). He is a member of the African Economic Research Consortium network.
His project, “Capital Flight from Africa and Perverse Global Connections: Evidence and Possible Solutions,” seeks to answer two questions: (1) What domestic and global factors enable capital flight from Africa? and, (2) How does capital flight affect poverty, equity, governance, and security?
