At the heart of global economic development policy

Charles Amo Yartey [2002] always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps as an accountant. Growing up in Ghana, he applied to do Business Administration at university, but, because he had not studied business at school, he was offered Economics. It proved to be the start of a fascinating career at the centre of global economic development policy at the International Monetary Fund.

Charles soon discovered a passion for Economics which took him to the University of Cambridge where he did a master’s in Development Studies in 1999, supervised by Professor Ha-Joon Chang, and then a PhD funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust, then in its second year. While there was discussion at the time about whether developing countries should set up their own stock markets, Charles felt that the movement could not be stopped and so what was needed was advice on how to make the most out of the capitalist system.

He never planned to work for the IMF as it is notoriously difficult to get into. His aim was to work for an international organisation in order to pursue his interest in international development. The breakthrough for him came in the summer of 2003 after the first year of his PhD when he interned at the IMF in Washington. He was told to research post-conflict reconstruction in Africa. The IMF later published his internship paper in the book Post Conflict Economics in sub-Saharan Africa.

In his final year, Charles returned to the IMF as a consultant on financial markets. At the time, many African countries were trying to establish their own stock markets. Charles wanted to highlight the important role the African financial market was playing in the global economy, drawing on his PhD research. During his time as a consultant he applied to join the IMF’s programme for young economists and went through an assessment in Paris.

Charles' career in the IMF has been extensive, ranging from giving work on countries including South Africa, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Jamaica, Barbados and Suriname. He has been both a senior economist and country representative.

He says he has benefited throughout his career from the Gates Cambridge community both at Cambridge discussing policy issues with fellow scholars and since. “Cambridge gave me a very strong foundation and Gates Cambridge provided different perspectives on global issues from many different angles,” he states. “There is no better place to study Economics than at Cambridge when it comes to a career in economic policy. The college and the Gates Cambridge system gave me unparallelled support and all those networks I was part of at Cambridge have been very useful for my career development.”

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