The nine sessions that formed part of this edition began in mid-April and were headed by leading U.S. experts in the field of public administration and academia, but always with the intervention of the African participants. Among the speakers were the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield; the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Susan Rice; Pinelopi Goldberg, professor of economics at Yale and former chief economist of the World Bank; Akunna Cook, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; and Bisa Williams, former U.S. Ambassador to Niger.