Ernest Aryeetey

Ernest Aryeetey is the secretary-general of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), a network of 16 of Africa’s flagship universities as well as a professor of economics and board chairman of the African Economic Research Consortium. He was, until recently, the board chairman of Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited and a member of the Governing Council of the United Nations University (2016-19). 

Aryeetey is the former vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana (2010-16) and has previously held academic appointments at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Yale University and Swarthmore College. He was also and was formerly chairman of the Advisory Board of the UNU-World Institute for Development Economics Research. Additionally, he served as director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana (2003-10) and was the first director of the Africa Growth Initiative of Brookings Institution. 

Born in Ghana, he holds a doctorate from the University of Dortmund and honorary degrees from the University of Sussex, Lund University and Stellenbosch University. One of Aryeetey’s strategic priorities as vice-chancellor at the University of Ghana was to develop the University into a research-intensive institution that supports structural transformation in Africa.