African leaders discuss the state of the African economy at the 2010 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings. Photo: International Monetary Fund (flickr)

The Economist

The Economist

Since 2001, the budding economies of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have dominated global financial headlines. But looking back, it turns out some of the so-called “African lion” economies (Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda) were just as fierce.

Six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world hail from the “forgotten continent” of Africa — putting up annual average GDP growth rates of around 8 percent or more from 2001-2010. The monumental rates have even earned these sprinters a spot next to “Asia's tigers” of the 1980 and 1990s — Making Africa one of the fastest growing regions in the world, according to The Economist.

Over the past decade, sub-Saharan Africa’s real GDP growth rate jumped to an annual average of 5.7%, up from only 2.4% over the previous two decades. That beat Latin America’s 3.3%, but not emerging Asia’s 7.9%. Asia’s stunning performance largely reflects the vast weight of China and India; most economies saw much slower growth, such as 4% in South Korea and Taiwan. The simple unweighted average of countries’ growth rates was virtually identical in Africa and Asia.

That said, in the next five years Africa is set to take the top spot from Asia as the fastest-growing region in the world, writes The Economist. "Standard Chartered forecasts that Africa’s economy will grow at an average annual rate of 7 percent over the next 20 years, slightly faster than China’s."

Ironically, much of Africa's growth can be attributed to China's investment and demand for raw materials in the region. And more recently, another of the BRICS, Brazil, has been competing for assets in Africa, writes Fast Company.

The Economist also notes growing success in Africa's manufacturing sector, which Standard Chartered predicts will become "significant."

Even with challenges such as political instability, corruption and weak rule of law, the African lions have been able to compete with the economic prowess of the Asian tigers.

But before Africa's growling economies can dream of surpassing Asia's roaring ones, those structural problems will have to be fixed.

"Without reforms," The Economist says, "Africa will not be able to sustain faster growth."

We buy cheap bootleg DVDs and fake Coach purses from random street vendors with little hesitation. But what about buying your daily medication from them, too?

This is a common practice in the developing world. In Zimbabwe, for example, street vendors offer the poverty-stricken populace medicine for a price five to eight times less than a legitimate pharmacy.

The trouble with these cheap meds is that they're often not the real thing. One study cited by the World Health Organization says the counterfeit medication industry could reach $75 billion by 2010. Although the industry's reach is worldwide, it's more prevalent in developing countries. The WHO says "many countries in Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America have areas where more that 30% of the medicines on sale can be counterfeit."

Though buying counterfeit medications can save a lot of money, it is also very risky. In 1995, 89 Haitian children died from taking counterfeit cough syrup that contained the active ingredient in antifreeze instead of the real medication. Governments in the developing world often lack the resources to track and prosecute these illegal manufacturers and sellers. The Internet is only making the fight harder.

Major pharmaceutical companies are protecting their products from counterfeiters using different methods. Today, companies like GlaxoSmithKline use holographic labels or stickers to make their product more distinguishable from fakes. Recently, counterfeit drugmakers have, however, been able to convincingly duplicate many of these stickers and packaging. For example, one study revealed that about half of Southeast Asia's supply of the anti-malarial drug Artesunate was counterfeit despite holographic packaging.

The easiest and fastest way to decrease the market for these fake drugs is for consumers to increase their own awareness. Many news organizations have begun to help. In this video, Al-Jazeera reports on counterfeit drugs in Mauritania.

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Rising rice prices have created new problems for those countries, mostly in Asia, which depend on a large, inexpensive supply of the food, according to the Financial Times. This week, prices hit a 20-year high, "prompting importing countries to seek assurances on supplies."

Analysts have attributed the surge in rice prices to bad weather that has hit supply; urbanisation that has cut the acreage given over to cultivating the grain; and strong demand on the back of rapid income growth in China, India and other Asian countries...Asia has not known famines since the 1970s, and recent price rises for rice and other basic foodstuffs have sparked unrest.