Michel Camdessus is a French applied economist and administrator who was Managing Director of the
International Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
(IMF) from 16 January 1987 to 14 February 2000. To date, he is the longest serving Managing Director of the IMF.
Among the most important events of his tenure was the East Asian financial crisis. His role has been criticized for not paying attention to the unique circumstances of the East Asian countries and blindly imposing the measures that were followed in Mexico leading to considerable turmoil and rioting in countries such as Indonesia.
Previously, he was Deputy Governor and
GovernorA governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
of the Bank of France from November 1984 until his move to Washington DC.
Born in
BayonneBayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...
, France, Mr. Camdessus was educated at the
University of ParisThe University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
and earned postgraduate degrees in economics at
Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in Paris and the
École nationale d'administrationThe École Nationale d'Administration , one of the most prestigious of French graduate schools , was created in 1945 by Charles de Gaulle to democratise access to the senior civil service. It is now entrusted with the selection and initial training of senior French officials...
.
He is currently president of the Semaines Sociales de France and is a member of the Commission for Africa established by
Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
. He is also a member of the pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace.
Camdessus is a member of the
Africa Progress PanelThe Africa Progress Panel consists of a group of distinguished individuals chaired by Kofi Annan whose objective is to track and encourage progress in Africa, and to underscore shared responsibility between African leaders and their international partners for sustaining it.The APP was originally...
(APP), an independent authority on Africa launched in April 2007 to focus world leaders’ attention on delivering their commitments to the continent. The Panel launched a major report in London on Monday 16 June 2008 entitled
Africa's Development: Promises and Prospects.
External links
Links to Camdessus' articles and speeches