SOAS honorary awardees for 2024

Dr Amoako has been involved in supporting African countries during his professional career at the World Bank (1974-1995), as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (1995-2005), and as the Founder of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) since 2006, one of the leading think tanks in Africa, with its headquarters in Ghana. Under the leadership of Dr Amoako, ACET collaborated with the German Government and the German Presidency of the G-20, the Compact for Africa that focuses on transforming the African economy, industrialisation, and productive investment. ACET has convened the Transformation Leadership Panel (TLP) chaired by former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.  

Dr Amoako was actively involved in the institutional process of reforming the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union. He also actively contributed to the initiative of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which was championed by African leaders, including the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and former President Thabo Mbeki. He also played a key role in the formulation and execution of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an innovative governance initiative aiming at peer review among African countries. ­­­He has also been involved in high-level commissions on Africa, including the Commission for Africa (an initiative chaired by Tony Blair), the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (championed by late Kofi Annan), High-Level Trade Experts Group initiated by former Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor Angela Merkel.  

Dr Amoako successfully completed his PhD in economics from the University of California at Berkley in 1974. Prior to that, he completed his BA and MA in economics. Dr Amoako has collaborated with many SOAS scholars including with British Academy Global Professor Arkebe Oqubay. 

Professor Dawut spent 25 years researching the religious traditions and expressive culture of her people. Beginning with a ground-breaking PhD on Uyghur Sufi shrine culture in 1998 at Beijing’s Nationalities University, she has produced two books and more than thirty research articles in Uyghur, Chinese and English. As a professor at Xinjiang University, she trained a new generation of Uyghur anthropologists and folklorists, many of whom have gone on to complete PhDs in universities abroad. She led and participated in a series of major research projects including an international collaboration with SOAS School of Arts. Professor Dawut’s daughter, Akeda Polat, will be accepting her award via video message on her behalf.    ­

Dr Lewis was a member of the Brixton Black Women's Group and one of the founder members of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent, Britain’s first national organisation for black and other women of colour. She is currently writing a book on Black feminism in Britain and has written on feminism, the psychosocial dynamics of racialised-gendered experience. She believes that intergenerational conversations, as part of process of ancestral connection and guidance, are among the most urgent in these times. Dr Lewis is also a season ticket holder for Arsenal football club and believes that music and sport hold all the constraining logics of power and the refusals and potentials of liberation. Dr Lewis is Visiting Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University (2021-2025) and Reader Emerita, Birkbeck College, University of London. 

Professor Bogues is an author and scholar having written and edited books in the fields of African and African Diasporic political thought and theory, African and African diasporic intellectual history, and Caribbean art. He is the Asa Messer professor of Humanities and Africana Studies, a professor in the department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University and a visiting professor of African and African Diaspora Thought at the Free University of Amsterdam as well as a distinguished visiting professor and curator at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Professor Bogues is the co-convenor and co-curator of the Global Curatorial Project on the global history of racial slavery and colonialism with the National African American Museum of History and Culture at the Smithsonian.  

Lord Sainsbury set up the Gatsby Foundation in 1967 and has been a strong advocate for structural transformation in Africa with a focus on East Africa. The Gatsby Foundation has promoted several productive investments and initiatives in the region, also in partnership with governments in Tanzania and Kenya. Lord Sainsbury was the Finance Director of J. Sainsbury plc from 1973 – 1990 and Chairman from 1992 – 1998. He was appointed Minister of Science and Innovation from July 1998 until November 2006. In 2007 Lord Sainsbury produced a review of the Government’s science and innovation policies, “The Race To The Top”.  He is also the author of two books "Progressive Capitalism: How to Achieve Economic Growth, Liberty and Social Justice" (2013) and "Windows of Opportunity: How Nations Create Wealth" (2020). Since 2011, he has held the position of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He became Lord Sainsbury of Turville in October 1997.

Dr Atiur Rahman served as the 10th Governor of Bangladesh Bank from 2009 to 2016. The defining feature of his tenure was his flagship financial inclusion campaign and environmentally benign banking initiatives. As Governor, he made significant contributions at the 3GF conference, Rio+20, COP18, and SDG Global Compact-related international negotiations development goals. He was also a member of the UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System. Dr Rahman is an Emeritus Professor at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Center for Advanced Research on Arts and Social Sciences in the same university. He is also the founding Chairperson of the national think tank, Unnayan Shamannay, and the Chair of Dhaka School of Banking Management (a subsidiary of BIBM affiliated with Dhaka University). Dr Rahman is also serving as a Special Adviser to Social Innovation Japan (SIJ), a diverse platform of change-makers at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. He has published over 100 books and numerous papers in national and international journals. His book, ‘Peasants and Classes’ published by Oxford University Press, Delhi, and Zed Books, London, is considered semi-classic and taught worldwide.

Professor Wang earned his PhD at SOAS in 1957 on 'The Structure of Power in North China during the Five Dynasties’, which was subsequently published by Stanford University Press. Following his doctoral studies, Professor Wang went on to have a distinguished career in academia at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, the Australia National University, the University of Hong Kong and the National University of Singapore. He served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1995. He is Commander of the Order of the British Empire; Officer of the Order of Australia; and received the Distinguished Service Order of Singapore. He was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize; the Nara Economic and Social Science Prize; and the Tang Prize in Sinology.