George Ayittey is a prominent Ghanaian economist and president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington, DC. He is the distinguished economist in residence at American University. He has written many articles and papers, and contributed chapters to many books. His most recent book was Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Development (2005).

William Easterly is professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and co-director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is also a non-resident fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. His areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He has worked in the developing world, most heavily in Africa, Latin America, and Russia. He is the author of The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006).

David Rieff is a writer and policy analyst. He is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute at The New School and a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University. He is on the board of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute. He has written seven books, most recently At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention (2005), and has published numerous articles.

C. Payne Lucas a writer, speaker and activist, was co-founder and president of Africare from 1971 through mid-2002. He is a senior advisor to AllAfrica Global Media and the AllAfrica Foundation. During a 40-year career, including 10 years at the Peace Corps, Lucas has been recognized for outstanding work by successive American presidents and heads of state throughout Africa. He received the 1984 U.S. Presidential End Hunger Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement.

John McArthur is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Project and serves concurrently as associate director at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, where his research focused on the links between institutions, health, geography and economic development.

Gayle Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and director of the International Rights and Responsibilities Program and Energy Opportunity Program. She served as special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from 1998-2001, and as senior advisor to the administrator and chief of staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 1994-1998. Smith was based in Africa for over 20 years as a journalist.