ABSTRACT
In February 2004 the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, set up and launched the Commission for Africa (CFA) to take a fresh look at Africa’s past and present and the international community’s role in its development. Its authoritative report, Our Common Interest (CFA, 2005), has been widely applauded for its scope, simplicity, clarity, rigour, outreach and comprehensiveness—features that will make it a "valuable resource book for years to come". 1 To gether with the Sachs Report on the Millennium Development Goals, the CFA report contributed in 2005 to the extraordinary interest in development generally and in Africa in particular. Yet, for some, the measure of its success will be in the implementation of its recommendations; to get buy-in of the dismissive USA, further actions from the ambivalent French, Germans and Japanese and, most significantly, for the UK itself to "put its money where its mouth is".
