Africa in a Post-Aid World: Reimagining the Global Architecture of Prosperity

Join the Harvard Center for International Development in welcoming Her Excellency Ahunna Eziakonwa, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa to the United Nations Secretary-General, for a conversation on Africa’s role in a changing global order.

At a time when aid and development financing are increasingly contested, Africa and its diaspora face consequential choices about the terms on which they will participate in the global economy. For decades, aid has framed the continent primarily as a recipient. Eziakonwa will explore the structural question at the heart of a post-aid world: Who builds, owns, and governs the systems on which African prosperity depends?

Drawing on the mandate of the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa to advance UN system support for Agenda 2063, she will argue that Africa is not capital-scarce but requires the financial, industrial, digital, and institutional systems that enable its wealth to serve its people. The conversation will consider what this shift means for African UN Member States, the multilateral system, and Africa’s global partnerships in the next phase of the continent’s development.

This event is hosted by Harvard’s Center for International Development and will be held in a hybrid format. All are welcome. Harvard ID holders are encouraged to attend in person, while non-HUID guests are invited to join via livestream or access the event recording afterward.