Hi, first post yay!!

I don't know if anybody noticed it. You certainly don't hear about much in the media. But Africas economy has grown alot for the past years. Alot of subsaharan countries are starting to look interesting for foreign investors.

Do anybody know why this trend has started and stayed so strong for the last couple of years?

And do you think that it will lead to a better Africa?

Like china?

West sub-saharian (Burkina faso, Mali etc) and West saharian african countries (Maroco, Algeria)
have seen substantial economic growth recently:
Tourism is certainly the main factor. A lot of retirees (mainly german) spend sevral months every year in Africa, in their mobile-home.
Just a handful a few years ago, they are coming now by the tens of thousands.
What helped the most was increased security in Marroco. Thought, you still cross the Sahara in convoys protected by the army.

New roads are being build linking the north african coast to sub saharian Africa. 3 years ago there were no asphalted road across the Sahara at all. Today there are 3 or 4. The longest one now reaches Bamako. Only 4x4 adventurers will be disapointed.


Africans in this region are extremely ingenius at repairing, recycling and starting small businesses from scratch. Some new mentality emerge there. With more "whites" coming, some are opening hotels for low budget tourists, low budget garages, restaurants etc. I mean low budget for europeans, still much cheaper than the rare and exclusive acomodation of colonial atmosphere.
Little by little these poeple can afford a 20 years old car, then a 10 years old one. They can afford new computers, learn languages, have mobile phones etc. All this slowly increase productivity.

Other regions of Africa however don't cope so well: East Africa (Chad, Sudan, Erthrea etc) and Central africa (Congo, Rwanda etc) are regressing due to wars.

micfranklin
How do blacks in the US see blacks in Africa? 

South-central and south-east Africa actually are doing better than before, as well as the areas already mentioned. With the exception of Zimbabwe of course.
It's due to a range of factors, but one of them is political stability. A lot of countries in Africa have come out of civil wars (Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo, etc). They're not exactly perfectly stable, but they're a lot better than before. They have much better atmospheres for economic growth.