Célestin Monga teaches public policy (economics) at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is also Faculty Associate at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University and Fellow at the Harvard University Center for African Studies. Since 2016, he has also been part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Research Professor at Peking University’s Institute of New Structural Economics. Prior to his current life in academia Monga held various board and senior executive positions in academia, financial services, and international development institutions, serving most recently as Managing Director at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vice-President and Chief Economist of the African Development Bank Group, and Senior Economic Adviser/Program Director at the World Bank Group.
Monga has published extensively on various dimensions of economic and political development. His books have been translated into several languages and are widely used as teaching tools in academic institutions around the world. His most recent works include The Oxford Handbook of Structural Transformation (2019), with J.Y. Lin; Beating the Odds: Jump-Starting Developing Countries (Princeton University Press, 2017), with J.Y. Lin; the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics (2015), with J.Y. Lin; and Nihilism and Negritude: Ways of Living in Africa (Harvard University Press, 2016). Dr. Monga holds graduate degrees from MIT, Harvard University, and the Universities of Paris and Pau.