Economic Transformation in Africa: Getting Governance Right
Across Africa, opportunities—and pressures—for sustained economic growth, structural change, inclusive development, and employment are expanding. But absent accountable and competent governance, bold leadership, and strategic vision, the prospects for economic transformation and diversification will dim. Speakers in this session will examine private, public, and non-governmental approaches to supporting capacity, accountability, and political will for economic transformation in Africa.
Featuring: 
Ms. Erin Sineshas been with MacArthur since 2009. She is the co-director of the Foundation’s On Nigeria program and director of the Population & Reproductive Health program. Prior to her current position, she was a program officer for Population and Reproductive Health and Girls’ Secondary Education grantmaking. Before joining MacArthur, Erin worked at the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO, where she provided strategic guidance, technical assistance, and capacity building in the use of data for reproductive health policy and program development. She worked closely with policymakers and researchers in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Mongolia. Earlier in her career, she worked on adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Latin America and conducted research on maternal and child health issues in the US. Erin has an M.P.H. from Columbia University and received her B.A. in Spanish and International Politics from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She serves on the board of directors of the Funders Network for Population and Reproductive Health and the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health.
Mr. Lars Benson is Regional Director for Africa at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in Washington, DC. He works closely with partners representing the private sector, civil society, and government to implement policy and regulatory reforms, enhance anti-corruption initiatives, engage in public-private dialogue, and improve democratic governance across the continent.
Prior to joining CIPE, Benson served as the country director assisting small and medium enterprises to provide services and products to the oil industry in Angola. He also led an economic development and private enterprise program in Azerbaijan and worked on numerous World Bank, USAID, and State Department projects in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. In the private sector, Benson served as a regional sales manager for a U.S. manufacturer of electronic repair equipment and was responsible for sales and marketing in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. He also spent a number of years working for U.S. Broadcast News organizations and served as the NBC News office manager in Kuwait. He has an MBA from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University.
Dr. Kate Steel joined USAID’s Power Africa in late 2014, where she leads the Energy Sector team in providing technical and policy expertise to create the right enabling environment for private sector investment in Africa. Before coming to AID, she focused on renewable energy and energy access investments in Africa and South Asia at Google. Dr. Steel began her post-academic career at the World Bank, having been selected to the Young Professionals Program. As a program manager for Lighting Africa, she helped grow the program from pilots in Kenya and Ghana to a global program with activities across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Early in her career, Dr. Steel consulted on energy access projects in South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. She received a PhD in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a MS in Engineering-Development Technologies from University of Melbourne, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
Mr. Joel Wiegert is Senior Vice President of Jefferson Waterman International. Previously, he spent more than a decade at the U.S. Department of State – serving abroad in American Embassies in Angola, Tanzania, Ghana and South Africa – where he specialized in economic, commercial and development issues, particularly with regard to African nations. During this phase of his career, Mr. Wiegert established a noteworthy record of furthering the negotiation and finalization of market access, finance, energy and economic development agreements, while developing extensive regional contacts in Africa and the U.S. government. As Deputy Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in South Africa, Mr. Wiegert focused on economic and financial sector matters, the continuation of South Africa’s benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and improving U.S.-South African trade and investment relations. As Economic Section Chief in Ghana, he led efforts to strengthen Ghana’s economy, guided the finalization of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s second compact, assisted Ghana’s Ministry of Finance and the Office the Presidency in their negotiations of a $918 million International Monetary Fund facility, and advised on the multi-billion dollar Sankofa oil and gas project. In addition, Mr. Wiegert served as the principal Africa advisor for the Under Secretary of State’s efforts to deepen regional interagency economic engagement, and as the U.S. State Department’s Ethiopia Desk Officer. Mr. Wiegert earned both his Master’s degree and his BSBA degree in Business Administration/Economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Ms. Jennifer Cooke is director of the CSIS Africa Program, where she leads research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on U.S.-Africa policy and provides briefings, testimony, and policy recommendations to U.S. policymakers, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. military. Recent projects include an examination of militancy and extremism in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, religious authority and the state in Africa, energy trends in sub-Saharan Africa, and the launch of the “Spotlight on Africa” conference series, which provides an in-depth look at political and economic developments in Africa’s most dynamic economies. Cooke is a frequent commentator in print, on radio, and on television, and she has testified before Congress on Boko Haram in Nigeria, the political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, and the African Union. She travels widely in Africa and has been an election observer in Sierra Leone, Mali, Nigeria, and Ghana. Growing up, she lived in Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic, as well as Belgium, Italy, and Canada. Prior to CSIS, she worked at the National Academy of Sciences in the Office of Human Rights and the Office of News and Public Information and in the U.S. Congress on the House Subcommittee on Africa. She holds an M.A. in African studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. in government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.