Led by example

GRAND plans for African economic recovery have never worked. The latest, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or Nepad, seeks wholesale change, the end of wars, better governments and a surge of foreign and local investment. All nice ideas, and some leaders such as South Africa's Thabo Mbeki are serious about them. But too many others, from Libya's Muammar Qaddafi to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, are not. So how to make progress? Mr Mbeki could instead look for small, concrete economic successes nearer home, and celebrate those.