Not Just Aid: How Making Government Work Can Transform Africa (by Tony Blair)

My central message to the traditional development community is that to get the leadership you say you want from African countries, you need to start by putting yourself in the shoes of leaders themselves. In this essay, I want to set out what I think the development community needs to do to make this commitment to country leadership a reality.

I am an optimist about Africa. I believe that, with the right leadership, Africa has the potential to be to the first half of this century what Asia was to the second half of the last: an engine of prosperity capable of lifting millions out of poverty and allowing them to experience the opportunities of the global economy, not just its vicissitudes.