Africa is home to extraordinary natural resources, entrepreneurial talent, youthful energy and one of the world's greatest opportunities for economic growth.
Yet for generations, too much of the continent has operated within systems that extract value more effectively than they create, retain and compound it.
Raw materials leave. Finished products return. Trade grows. Yet productive capacity often lags behind. Capital exists. Yet too little reaches productive enterprise.
The challenge is therefore not one of potential. Nor is it one of ambition. It is one of architecture.
The future of Africa will not be determined by what lies beneath its soil, but by the systems it builds above it.