“African Solutions for African Problems”
Professor George Ayittey, American University

“Crises in the African Great Lakes Region: Causes, Issues and Solutions”
Ambassador André Kapanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo Permanent Representative to the United Nations

George B. N. Ayittey is Associate Professor of Economics at The American University, Washington, D.C. He was born in Ghana and is a former National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of Indigenous African Institutions (1991), Africa Betrayed (1993) and Africa in Chaos (1998; 1999) and has served as a consultant to the World Bank and U.S. AID, as well as testified before the U.S. Congress on Africa-related issues.

Dr. Ayittey’s numerous articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Globe C? Mail, International Herald Tribune and the London Times. He has also written for many African newspapers including Ghana Drum, The Christian Messenger The Sowetan and The Continent.

André M. Kapanga is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Prior to becoming Ambassador in 1997, Dr. Kapanga was (and is still) an Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at Illinois State University. Having been instrumental in the UN vs. DR Congo negociations after Laurent Kabila overthrew the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, Dr. Kapanga is well acquainted with the Congolese civil war as well as its international ramifications in the Great Lakes region, above all as they pertain to the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi, as well as to the Ugandan, Rwandan and Zimbabwean implication in the war in the DRC.