We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans. I say this knowing full well the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world. Now, to realize that promise, we must first recognize the fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: Development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That’s the change that can unlock Africa’s potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans. Repression can take many forms, and too many nations, even those that have elections, are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves

Even if his pessimism doesn’t seem wholly warranted, a sense of foreboding surely is, which is why his warnings have to be taken seriously. Mr. Phillips writes that the inventors and marketers of the new financial instruments didn’t entirely understand them. An executive of Fidelity International says a panicky feeling has set in on Wall Street because no one knows where the risks really are. The finance minister of France observes that investments may have reached such a level of complexity that no one can assess them. And Charles R. Morris, in his own gloomy book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” reports that even Citigroup’s chief financial officer “did not know how to value his holdings.