Karl Offmann, the former president of the African nation of Mauritius, will make his way across the Atlantic Ocean to Boston University this week as the university’s third Balfour president-in-residence, replacing former Liberian President Ruth Sando Perry, who left the program at the end of March.
African Presidential Archives and Research Center Director Charles Stith said Perry’s departure from the program was not a result of her hospitalization at the end of February with an undisclosed illness.
“Madame Perry’s residency ended the end of March,” Stith said. “It was initially scheduled to end then. Her health problem was obviously unfortunate.”
Offmann, 63, will stay until October, Stith said.
As APARC’s third president-in-residence, Offmann will attend numerous lectures and forums, including an African presidential roundtable slated for April 22. During last year’s roundtable, several former African presidents discussed the continent’s economic health, and Stith said this year’s panel – which will start on BU’s London campus and finish on the Charles River Campus – will follow a similar topic.
“It will be generally looking at facilitating capital flow to Africa,” said Stith, the former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania. “We will also look at the African Growth and Opportunity Act here in Boston.”
Stith said the act was one of the major reasons Offmann was brought to the program, and he will work on it as Congress reauthorizes it this year. The AGOA, a trade bill originally signed in 2000, “offers tangible incentives for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets,” according to the act’s website.
Congress determines which countries are eligible for the act annually, and Mauritius was one of the countries included when the current version was signed in December, according to a White House press release.
“We now have Congress presently debating the third generation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act,” Stith said. “Given that Mauritius is one of those countries that was a model as how legislation should be crafted, it made sense in our mind to have him present at this point in time.
“Having him present in the country at this point in time is particularly important from a policy prospective,” he added.
Stith said Offmann will bring a lot of the history of democracy in Africa to his lectures and speeches at BU.
“I think given that you have in Mauritius a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that has been a model of growth and development and tranquility, that certainly represents the prospective that is important to appreciate where Africa is [now],” Stith said.
Although Offmann was unavailable for comment because he has not yet entered the country, Stith said the former African leader will be quite busy once he does.
“He is scheduled to participate in many events, including a Boulder, Colorado conference on world affairs immediately after his arrival,” Stith said.
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