ACEIR at a WIDER development conference in Colombia

This conference, the second development conference in 2022 hosted by the United Nations University’s (UNU) World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), identified inequality as “the great challenge of our time”. The three-day event took place in partnership with Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES) in Bogotá, Colombia, from 5 – 7 October 2022. 

To bring African knowledge and perspectives to this forum, ACEIR worked with the UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database (WIID) project to host a parallel session on “Measuring and understanding African inequality”. Held on 6 October 2022, the gathering discussed the levels and trends of inequality in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa with presentations by ACEIR’s Dr Monica Lambon-Quayefio (Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana); Dr Moses Muriithi (School of Economics, University of Nairobi), and Dr Takwanisa Machemedze (DataFirst, University of Cape Town). 

The session was co-chaired by ACEIR director, Prof Murray Leibbrandt, who also chaired a session on inequalities in the labour market on 5 October. He further presented on the last day of the conference at a session on “Social and ecological sustainability” that was organised and sponsored jointly with the European Union – Agence Française de Développement (EU-AFD) Research Facility on Inequalities, one of ACEIR’s key partners. 

At the African Economic Research Consortium’s co-hosted session on “Growth, poverty and inequality relationships in Africa”, on 5 October, ACEIR researcher Prof Germano Mwabu (University of Nairobi) provided input as a speaker. 

The recordings of these sessions are available online.