About us
Who We Are
We are a collection of forward-thinking individuals who feel that every government policy in Africa has an economic impact.
APEA is made up of scholars and practitioners dedicated to the accelerated development of Africa by applying cross-disciplinary methods to study and provide evidence to inform change and policymaking
It is an integrated approach to a scientific study of development in Africa and all African-inspired societies. We explicitly recognize the inherent relationship between politics and economics and the use of that lens in incorporating approaches from related disciplines of sociology, history, communication, geography, literature, among others, to elucidate the African phenomenon.
We are a collection of forward-thinking individuals who feel that every government policy in Africa has an economic impact.
Brief History
The African Political Economy Association was constituted from the West African Political Economy Association, WAPEA, at the Allied Social Science Association Meetings, ASSA, in Philadelphia, January 2018. WAPEA was formed in Cotonou, Benin Republic, in July 2016, from a symposium with the same name, which was funded by a grant received from Indiana Wesleyan University. The symposium itself was a collaboration with the Center for Research on Political Economy, CREPOL, Dakar, during the Annual Conference on Regional Integration in Africa, ACRIA7, in Cotonou. The ACRIA series is a joint undertaking between CREPOL on the one hand and some ECOWAS agencies on the other. The cooperating ECOWAS agencies are, the West African Monetary Institute, WAMI, the West African Monetary Agency, WAMA, and the West African Institute for Economic and Financial Management, WAIFEM. There have been previous unsuccessful attempts to establish a political economy association in Africa, including by WAIFEM in 2013 and in Nairobi and Dakar in the 90s. The founding members in Cotonou appointed Diery Seck and Dele Omosegbon to be the coordinators of the new association. In Lome, during ACRIA8, in 2017, WAPEA was formally inaugurated and elections were held. The following became the founding officers.
- Co-Presidents, Diery Seck and Dele Omosegbon
- Secretary, Miesha Williams
- Dele Omosegbon
- Treasurer, Françoise Okah
- Chair, Research, and Training, Toussaint Houeninvo
- Chair, Membership Media & Marketing, Ernest