Professor Admasu Shiferaw (College of William & Mary, USA) will deliver the lecture on “African Socioeconomic Development”:

1. Understanding Africa’s poor economic performance after independence from colonialism (1960-1999);
2. Understanding Africa’s recent economic recovery and growth since the early 2000s-so called “Africa Rising”;
3. Key Remaining Challenges;
4. Conclusions

on Saturday May 30th, 2026 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Admasu Shiferaw is Assistant Professor of Economics and Africana Studies at The College of William and Mary, USA.  Admasu Shiferaw joined the College of William and Mary in the Fall of 2011 as a faculty member of the Economics Department and the Africana Studies program. Before that Admasu has been a research fellow at the Courant Research Center, University of Göttingen, Germany; and a lecturer at the International Institute of Social Studies (IISS)-The Hague of the Erasmus University-Rotterdam. His research interests are in development economics, industry dynamics and international competitiveness. His recent research includes firm level analysis of productivity, investment and employment dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Admasu enjoys teaching development economics, African economic development, and econometrics. Admasu received his undergraduate degree from Alemaya University, Ethiopia and his M.A and Ph.D in Development Economics from the International Institute of Social Studies-ISS Den Haag of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. [read more]