This blog is meant to highlight observations "where global issues, advocacy and messaging meet." That can be a dangerous intersection -- or at least an uncomfortable one -- when an issue position that the GII has messaged and advocated for gets called into question. Thanks to Mauro De Lorenzo's work at the American Enterprise Institute, I had the opportunity this past Friday to hear some challenging perspectives on African development issues. De Lorenzo's interests in development leapfrog the current Washington wonk debate about structural reforms to official development assistance (ODA). He focuses instead on facilitating development through means of which ODA is a small part: investment financing; agriculture subsidy reform (oops, too late); trade agreements. One recurrent theme: how to sweep away impediments to large-scale investments by emerging African, Western and Southern investors. (To some in this room, China's free-spending ways in Africa looked like just the thing to jump-start market-led growth; this blog has featured De Lorenzo's views on the subject before.)

We'll feature De Lorenzo's own summary once he and his team go public with it, but one recurring theme was especially striking: electric power as a constraint on investment and economic growth. Is creating a more predictable and welcoming environment for private investment the right way to fire up the grid? This account from the New York Times makes it sound a bit more complicated than that. But maybe I'll see the light after a couple more meetings.