The FT Africa Summit opens in London on 21 October with presidents, finance ministers and the continent’s biggest industrialists selling a growth story to global capital. Two weeks after Africa launched its own credit rating agency, the more interesting question is no longer what the room thinks of Africa — it is who gets to set the price of African risk.

The Africa Credit Rating Agency, launched in Mauritius on 7 October, is the continent’s boldest attempt yet to challenge the ‘prejudice premium’ it says inflates its borrowing costs. But an agency created by the borrowers it will grade faces one test above all others: being believed.