Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
Things are not as bleak now as thry have been:

http://rs.resalliance.org/2011/01/12...onomic-growth/

In the prediction for the 10 fastest growing economies of the next four years, 7 of them are in Africa. And contrary to what warman fears, this is not because China isn't meddling, it is because China is meddling. China has given more growth and life to Africa in a couple of decades than what Europe has done since we first started our meddling there.

One thing you might notice that the article text missed about that list, is that all of those countries* are at peace and have a (relatively) stable political situation. In my opinion, peace, and to an extent democracy, is the key here. With more peace comes more economic growth, with more economic growth comes more peace.



*except from Congo, if they're talking about the big Congo and not the small Congo
I don't think that analysis is all that positive. Percentage growth can be very misleading. For example, a jump from 1 to 10 represents a percentage jump far greater than a jump from 100 to 110, despite the real numbers being equal. If such growth can be sustained over a long period of time, it can become significant. However, considering the growth is based almost entirely on commodity prices, that is hard to see happening considering the resource curse that is characteristic of such economies.