This window of opportunity, if managed the right way, will enable Africa to transform its economies, set itself on a path toward sustainable and inclusive growth, and realize the potential that has eluded it for so long.
But after a life that took me from Ghana to the World Bank to the United Nations and back to Ghana, where I founded the African Center for Economic Transformation, I learned that three fundamental factors – people, policies, and institutions – are as critical as any.
Over my 50 years in African development, I've seen leaders undone by poor policy choices, and I've seen public servants beaten down by bureaucracy.
These all are key factors in economic transformation, which is now widely accepted as the primary development blueprint for Africa.
I explore all of these requirements in much greater detail in Know the Beginning Well, because they are the answers to the questions in the very first paragraph: what is the right way for Africa to embrace its current opportunity, meets its current challenges, and realize its potential at long last?
