2021 Edition of the Kofi Annan Emminent Speakers' Lecture Series

On 13 December from 14:00 to 16:00 GMT, the African Development Bank and the African Development Institute are hosting the 2021 edition of the Kofi Annan Eminent Speakers' Lecture Series.

The Eminent Speaker for this year is Prof Esther Duflo – Professor of Economics at MIT and 2019 Nobel Laureate in Economics. The topic of her lecture is “Good Economics for Warmer Times: How to Address Our Climate Change Challenges.” The event also features a conversation between Professor Duflo and President Akinwumi Adesina on the subject.

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). In her research, she seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim of helping to design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment and governance. Professor Esther Duflo’s first degrees were in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris. She subsequently received a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1999.

The Eminent Speakers’ Lecture Series was launched by the Bank in 2006 and rebranded as the Kofi Annan Eminent Speakers’ Lecture in 2018. The lecture has been a forum for sharing policy insights on development challenges in Africa.