Why Obama is Selling Africa Short (Bloomberg Businessweek)

From article: 

In the past 15 years, the economy of sub-Saharan Africa has doubled in size to more than $1 trillion (this at market exchange rates). The region’s imports of goods and services over the same period have climbed from $127 billion to $377 billion. And there are a lot of reasons to think Africa’s economic future is bright. Inflation is down and debt is increasingly sustainable: In 1997, the region was paying 4.6 percent of gross national income GNI to debt service, but that's dropped to 1.9 percent in 2013. Sub-Saharan Africa is also ever more healthy and educated: Life expectancy has climbed seven years since 2000, and secondary school enrollment rates went from 21 percent to 34 percent over that time. 

The U.S. is missing out on the opportunity this dynamism presents. Africa’s imports of goods equaled $194 billion in 2013, of which the U.S. provided $8.7 billion—less than 5 percent of the total and one-third of China’s share. U.S. foreign direct investment in the region, with a stock of $31 billion, was a more respectable 13 percent of total stocks but has been growing at half the rate of Japan’s regional  FDI stock and one-quarter of China’s over the period 2001-12.

Read full article here.