Independence, as the nationalists had always insisted, makes a lot of difference. It transfers much of the effective power to individuals and structures internal to the country. The government of a new nation, immediately after independence, is a very unstable thing. Independence was not magic. In country after country in Africa, during the first weeks of independence, the leaders felt the need to make speeches on the theme that independence means hard work and self-reliance. Before an African colony achieves independence it is part of an imperial economy. The shift to a national economy after independence is sometimes only a partial one, though the new government may try to intensify it for political rather than economic reasons. Ghana's independence and the first Conference of Independent African States, held in Accra in April 1958, changed the character of pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism has been a tool in the hands of African nationalist movements struggling for independence.