Foreign Affairs just published a review of Steven Radelet’s book Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way. Setting aside the ambiguity of the book’s title (leading the way to what – where – who?!) and the fact that the book is described as “new” when it was published over a year ago, the article, ‘Africa Unleashed – Explaining the Secret of a Belated Boom’ by Edward Miguel, provides a great review of Radelet’s look into the sudden economic growth experienced by sub-Saharan Africa in the last ten years. Telling the stories behind this growth is something that the Journal has also been focusing on in its Africa Rising series, which I helped work on when I was back in Johannesburg (read their Africa page for updates and features)

One part of the review that I liked in particular discussed the players behind this growth. Miguel writes:

Radelet also looks beyond government decisions, describing how individual Africans have accelerated these transformations, often at great personal risk. He profiles such visionaries as John Githongo, Kenya’s fearless anticorruption crusader, and Patrick Awuah, a Swarthmore College graduate who left a lucrative career at Microsoft to return to his native Ghana, where he founded Ashesi University, a liberal arts college that aspires to educate a new generation of ethical and entrepreneurial African leaders. There is finally enough oxygen in these increasingly free countries for talented Africans to reimagine and rebuild their societies.

I strongly believe that the most inspirational people on the continent are not the politicians nor the powerful, but the entrepreneurs, small businessmen and innovators who prevail against politics and power to enact change.