The Prepaid Economy: African Edition

If you want to hear some sunny economic forecasts for 2012, it’s best not to go looking in the United States – where GDP will grow by a lackluster 2 percent – or the eurozone, where the economy will actually get smaller this year.

No, if you’re looking for good news you’d be better off turning to the world’s poorest region, sub-Saharan Africa, where the economy is set to grow by nearly 6 percent in 2012. And that growth won’t be limited to regional powerhouses like Nigeria and South Africa:

One third of sub-Saharan Africa’s poorest countries, which have weathered the global economic downturn relatively unscathed, are expected to beat the region’s average growth rate.