What explains the “ambition gap” among Africa’s (ruling) elites?

On the drivers of African elites’ addiction to muddling through developmentalism

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I: Africa’s elites cannot outsource their countries’ developmental ambitions

Former Liberian Minister for Public Works and Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Gyude Moore, recently wrote an excellent piece warning African leaders against thinking that they can outsource their countries’ development ambitions. Here are some exerpts:

The Chinese have historically avoided conflating their current circumstances with their goals. They have never outsourced their ambitions to others, even when dependent on external actors for capital and expertise.

If there is one big thing we, Africans, can learn from our Chinese cousins, it is that we must wrest our ambitions for an expected future from external “partners” — be they multilateral institutions, Europeans, Americans, or Chinese.

A few years after the end of the Liberian civil war in 2003 —…