Fantu Cheru

Fantu Cheru is a political economist. His research concentrates on emerging powers and African development; natural resources governance with a focus on the mining sector; and on South-South cooperation in agriculture and food security.

Next to his work as a senior researcher at the African Studies Center in Leiden, Fantu is a Distinguished Research Associate at the North-South Institute (Ottawa, Canada). He is also Emeritus Professor of African and Development Studies at American University in Washington DC. From 2007-2012, Fantu was the Research Director at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. Previously, he served as a member of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Panel on Mobilizing International Support for the New Partnership for African Development (2005-2007) as well as Convener of the Global Economic Agenda Track of the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy, a joint initiative of the Governments of Finland and Tanzania. He also served as the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Foreign Debt and Structural Adjustment for the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva from 1998-2001.

His publications include Agricultural Development and Food Security in Africa: The Impact of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian Investments (2013), with Renu Modi; Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century, co-edited with Scarlett Cornelissen and Timothy M. Shaw (Palgrave, 2011); and The Rise of China and India in Africa(2010), co-edited with Cyril Obi. He serves on the editorial board of a number of academic journals.