Political reconciliation in South Africa may have been easy compared with the challenge of bringing those who suffered systematic discrimination and exclusion more fully into the economic marketplace.
The poor typically are creative and entrepreneurial but lack access to many of the essential tools of economic development. The rural poor are at a particular disadvantage since whatever economic infrastructure exists is concentrated in cities. McKinsey reported that worldwide some 2.5 billion people don't use banks or other formal financial institutions.
Such difficulties are ever evident in Africa. Perhaps the continent's greatest hope, beyond the resourcefulness and tenacity of Africa's diverse peoples, is the commercial advance of technology.