Inner Patterns for a Prosperous Africa

Biography of

DAMIEN AKOUETE EKLU-NATEY

Development economist,
President of FOSDAF

Dr. Eklu-Natey is a development economist, former Director General of Development Planning in the Ministry of Planning in Togo (1972-1980), Director General of the Togolese Development Studies Institute (1980-1993), one of the pioneers of African national, regional and international development studies institutions.

He started his panafrican career very early. In 1961, while still a student, he was elected Secretary General for Africa by the International Federation of Catholic Youth, having therefore got the opportunity to make the tour of the whole continent, measuring since then its potentials and challenges. This concern has strongly guided the choice of his doctoral thesis, entitled: ”Possibility of integration of the West African States”.

With that vision in mind, he became, as Director General of Planning of Togo, an active Member of the Panel of Experts responsible for the elaboration of the ECOWAS Treaty, the Annexed Protocols, focusing notably on those relating to agriculture and industry. He concomitantly animated or directed the elaboration and  implementation of three national five year development plans where he felt deeply the tangible limits of the mainstream patterns in bringing about enduring development, if any at all. He also participated in all regional development institutions, mainly, the African Development, Bank, the West African Development Bank (as Governor), ECA (UN Economic Commission for Africa) as well as international donor institutions World Bank and IMF (also as governor), United Nations institutions, mainly UNDP and UNIDO.

As Director General of Togolese Development studies, whose scope reached out to West and Central Africa), he funded and chaired the Togolese Association of Consultants (ACT)  and was founding member of the Federation of African Consultants (FECA) created under the auspices of the African Development Bank. 
 
After his retirement from the public administration, Dr Eklu-Natey was recruited by UNHCR (United  Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in Cote d’Ivoire as a Coordinator for socio-economic activities for Liberian Refugees (1983-1988), which gave him the first opportunity to innovate a new approach in dealing with the target groups, that is, organizing them in communities and empowering them to catering themselves to all aspects of their quality of life (health, education, water, energy, housing, youth, women, seniors, children, income generating activities, saving and credit unions). He noticed how more powerful it is to educate people’s self-building capacity than providing them with poverty alleviating assistance. 
 
Back home in 1998, he created an NGO to extend his new approach of grass-roots empowerment for development at a national level.  He concomitantly pursued his career of development consultant for the government (Togo), other African countries and international agencies. 
Dr Eklu-Natey has elaborated as a senior development economist, numerous reports and programming support documents for national, regional and international institutions 
He is author of
  • Creating and Running an Enterprise
  • Education Prénatale (Workshop for Women, Educators  and Workers Unions);
  • Workshop documents for Community Development
  • Cours d’Evaluation de Projets (Project Appraisal cour4se for the University of Togo)
  • Economic Development, the Strange Misunderstanding (launching document for FOSDAF) + a related Slideshow.
 
The last two documents are the first step of a book in preparation on the matter. 
Dr Eklu-Natey, now residing in the U.S.A, has decided to share his passion for an inner self-reliance approach to sustainable development of Africa and the renaissance of Afrikan people.

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