Professor Ahmadou Aly Mbaye dedicated his column in L'Observateur this Monday to Professor Moustapha Kassé, who passed away on June 1st. "As his student, colleague, friend, and a friend of his family, I can only join in these testimonies which have revealed to the public the stature of this economist, politician, and intellectual of exceptional caliber," the author explained.

The former rector of UCAD, through his tribute, he said, wanted to "emphasize a particular dimension of Professor Kassé's enormous legacy: the revitalization of 'the Dakar school' and its refocusing to put it at the service of economic policy in Africa."

Ahmadou Aly Mbaye likens Moustapha Kassé to "a synthesis of Wade [Abdoulaye] and Amin [Samir]", two major figures of the "Dakar school". He was a student of the former and a disciple of the latter.

"Like other development economists, such as Arghiri Emmanuel, Amin made his mark on economic development thinking and strongly influenced the prevailing ideologies in most developing countries, and the international geopolitics of the time," recalls Professor Mbaye.

At the dawn of his rise to power in 2000, Ahmadou Aly Mbaye recalls, Wade asked a group of African economists, under the coordination of Moustapha Kassé, "to propose a relevant programmatic offer, which would serve both as an alternative to structural adjustment programs and as an effective strategy for the economic integration of the continent."

The group was composed of proponents of "often contradictory lines of thought," the columnist notes. He continues: "It was here that Kassé demonstrated his abilities as a group manager, a shrewd tactician, and a profound understanding of both the issues at hand and the stakes involved, in reformulating a critical economic perspective to serve as the foundation for a new endogenous economic policy strategy."

The Omega plan and NEPAD were born from the deliberations of this circle of economists, notes Professor Mbaye.

“Moustapha had several advantages,” his former student acknowledged. “In his youth, he was confronted with the ideological contradictions between Wade and Amin. Furthermore, unlike many African intellectuals of the time who were content to understand and transmit economic theories without necessarily questioning their applicability in the African context, he had always been passionate about understanding the workings of the national economy and the governance challenges of all kinds that it entailed.”

The former rector of UCAD emphasized: "At the Faculty, he introduced a new course entitled 'National Economic Policies' in which he guided his students to bridge the gap between acquired theoretical knowledge and the surrounding economic reality. Furthermore, Master's students in economics were required to conduct field visits to an inland region of the country to perform an economic analysis and propose potential solutions, often as part of their Master's theses."