Rigorous playbook has blind spot on Africa’s Big Men
Making Africa Work lacks a sense of history and portrays an unrealistically optimistic view of Africa
Making Africa Work: A Handbook for Economic Success Greg Mills, Olusegun Obasanjo, Jeffrey Herbst, Dickie Davis Tafelberg The origins of this book go back to 1990, when Nelson Mandela asked Harry Oppenheimer to help smooth the path to transition by facilitating a roundtable involving SA’s top business echelons and ANC leadership. Held at Oppenheimer’s Brenthurst Estate in Parktown, the meeting seeded the formation of the Brenthurst Foundation, which aims to shape policy towards improved economic performance. Today, the foundation has a pan-African ambit and its associates and advisory board members include former presidents, one of whom is an author of Making Africa Work. By 2010, the foundation would have felt rewarded. The McKinsey Global Institute published its Lions on the Move report, a refreshingly upbeat prediction of the potential about to be unleashed in African economies. But since then commodity markets crashed, political uncertainty escalated in many countries and growth...
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