President Bush's new Africa initiative, and the recent events unfolding in Liberia, raise the question why, despite decades of aid, Africa remains impoverished. Over the years, the continent has been the site of large-scale experiments to reform its economies. But however ambitious, these projects have failed to generate sustained economic growth. Most African nations today are poorer than they were in 1980, sometimes by very wide margins. And of the continent's three-dozen countries, only two (Botswana and Uganda) have managed to grow at rates exceeding 3% per annum since 1980. More shocking, two-thirds of African countries...