Tribute to Professor Moustapha KASSÉ (by Professor Ahmadou Aly Mbaye)
Professor Moustapha Kassé passed away in June 2026, leaving several generations of African economists orphaned. Well-deserved tributes were paid to him by various members of the national and international community: family, colleagues, friends, and simple acquaintances. I, who was his student, his colleague, his friend and a friend of his family, can only associate myself with these testimonies which have made it possible to reveal to the public the stature of this economist, politician and intellectual, of an exceptional ilk. In this contribution, I would like to endeavor 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. The objective pursued is twofold: firstly, it is a question of highlighting one, among the most decisive of his academic and political contributions, but also of better situating his intellectual heritage in the current academic and political debate, with the aim of providing productive insight for society.
Ideological refocusing as a distinctive element of Kassé’s work
In the social sciences, a “school” or “school of thought, is a conceptual and doctrinal line making it possible to identify authors sharing a certain number of convictions and values on a subject, often controversial. The informed observer who has followed the doctrinal line of the literature produced by African economists, during the first decades following independence, and even before, will find it difficult to obscure the influence of Samir Amin, in the structuring of economic thought in Dakar, in Africa, or even almost everywhere in the world. Indeed, like other development economists, such as Arghiri Emmanuel, Amin left his mark on the economic thinking of development and strongly influenced the current ideologies in most developing countries, and the international geopolitics of the time. For example, the organization of non-aligned countries was openly inspired by his line of thought, like many faculties of social and human sciences throughout the world, as well as several UN institutions (such as UNCTAD). Strongly influenced by Marxism, this ideology was based on a sharp criticism of the capitalist system, and its often devastating interactions with the countries of the South, marked by exploitation, and a strategy of specialization, expressly designed to perpetuate the mechanisms of colonial economic domination. According to her, the countries of the South could only achieve development if they cut themselves off from the countries of the North, by developing a “self-centered”, “self-dynamic” and “self-sustaining” strategy according to a very popular expression at the time.
This extremely popular doctrine had a real attraction for most African intellectuals, which the quasi-messianic fascination that they developed for the person of Amin only reinforced. The 1980s marked a decisive turning point for African economic thought. Indeed, most developing countries, African in particular, have been overtaken by the consequences, to say the least disastrous, of protection policies aimed at developing infant industries, of all-out nationalizations, and of the development of very generous social programs. An accumulation of abysmal budget deficits, combined with external deficits, which the energy and financial crisis of the late 1970s suddenly revealed, will lead to balance of payments crises coupled with almost generalized insolvency.
At the same time, in the United States and the United Kingdom, conservative governments led respectively by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher came to power almost simultaneously, both having inherited a heavy history of public account deficits and stagflation (inflation combined with massive unemployment). At the same time as they both took unpopular measures to clean up their respective economies (massive budget cuts, waves of large-scale layoffs, drastic reductions in household purchasing power, etc.), they inspired similar policies internationally, mainly through the IMF and the World Bank. Thus the era of structural adjustment programs began, with their devastating social effects on African economies.
At the same time, in China, the transition of leadership between Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, which took place in 1979, will be another tipping point. As much as Mao was a charismatic ideologue, Deng was a visionary pragmatist, whose reforms, by all accounts, were the trigger for the Chinese economic miracle.
In Senegal, a real test of the political scope of the theory of peripheral capitalism, popularized by Amin, was the request made by President Abdoulaye WADE, newly in power, to the community of African economists, to propose a relevant programmatic offer, which should serve both as an alternative to structural adjustment programs and as a strategy for implementing an effective strategy for the economic integration of the continent.
Wade, who received the community of Senegalese and African economists based in Dakar every Saturday, under the direction of Moustapha Kassé, took part directly in these very passionate discussions. Very early on, the need for coordination of often contradictory lines of thought appeared. This is where Kassé demonstrated his abilities as a group manager, a fine tactician and a deep understanding of both the issues addressed and the challenges, in the reformulation of critical economic thinking, to serve as the basis for a new endogenous economic policy strategy.
A synthesis of Wade and Amin
In his new role as coordinator of the necessary overhaul of African economic thought, to make it both pragmatic and a provider of credible political solutions, Moustapha benefited from several assets. Himself a former student of WADE but disciple of Amin, he was confronted, in his youth, with the ideological contradictions between WADE and Amin. Then, unlike many African intellectuals of the time, who were content to understand and transmit the economic theories of the time without necessarily questioning their applicability in the African context, he had always been passionate about understanding the functioning of the national economy and the governance challenges of all kinds that it implied. At the faculty, he introduced a new course entitled “National Economic Policies”, in which he led his students to make the bridge between the theoretical knowledge acquired and the surrounding economic reality. In addition, Master’s in Economics students were required to make field visits, going to an interior region of the country, with a view to carrying out an economic diagnosis and proposing possible solutions, often as part of master’s theses. He had also written enormous contributions, in reference works, to provide insight into complex subjects of national economic management: the peanut economy, land management, industrialization, the banking system, etc. He had also been advisor to President Blaise Compaoré, in a critical phase of the economic evolution of Burkina Faso, a period in which this country achieved remarkable economic performances.
The group that Kassé led and whose mission was to propose an offer of realistic public policies to the president was both diverse and of high quality. It included university professors, but also practitioners like Gnounka Diouf, Jean-Pierre Noël, and Racine Bathily. Long deliberations on various subjects linked to national economic policy and African regional integration gave rise to the publication of orientation documents which greatly inspired President WADE in the definition of his African economic strategy, in particular the Omega plan, and subsequently NEPAD.
Carrying on Kassé’s legacy
African intellectuals paid tribute to Moustapha Kassé, during his lifetime, in particular during the meetings organized in his honor, where his thoughts were revisited, and testimonies made about him, coming from different segments of society (universities, governments, civil society, political parties, intellectuals of all stripes), etc. Beyond the testimonies and posthumous eulogies given to him, the most important challenge that our community of economists will face is the perpetuation of his work. The formulation of development policies in our countries involves a delicate balance. As much as ideology is important to serve national interests, excess ideology kills science. It can in fact lead to shortcuts that are often very comfortable and attractive, due to its generous simplifications which lack a scientific basis. In this case, it will be of very little help to political decision-makers looking for practical solutions, concerning burning problems to be solved, often with options that are both limited and delicate. Adopting economic policy recommendations based on a rigorous analysis of the context constitutes the best service that our community can provide to society, and the best way to perpetuate the work of Kassé.
Professor Ahmadou Aly Mbaye
