海角大神

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

No, if you鈥檙e looking for good news you鈥檇 be better off turning to the world鈥檚 poorest region, sub-Saharan Africa, where the economy is set to grow by nearly 6 percent in 2012.

And that growth won鈥檛 be limited to regional powerhouses like Nigeria and South Africa: One third of sub-Saharan Africa鈥檚 poorest countries, which have weathered the global economic downturn relatively unscathed, are expected to beat the region鈥檚 average growth rate.

Leading the pack is Sierra Leone, a South Carolina-sized West African nation with a population of 6 million. The country鈥檚 GDP is set to swell by a mammoth 51.4 percent in 2012, according to the IMF. That鈥檚 largely thanks to a single company: the junior mining firm African Minerals, which is mining iron ore in the middle of the country.

African Minerals has already raised $1.4 billion for its Tonkolili iron ore project, which includes a refurbished deep-water port and a 120-mile railway line. That鈥檚 very big money in Sierra Leone, where the value of the entire economy was just $1.9 billion in 2010.

Mining investment is also bringing big gains to Niger, a poor West African nation that ranked second from the bottom on the most recent UN Human Development Index. With new uranium mines coming online, Niger is set to become the world鈥檚 second-biggest uranium producer by 2014. Thanks to those projects as well as a new oil rig, Niger鈥檚 economy will grow by more than 12 percent this year, the IMF predicts.

The other big performers this year will be sub-Saharan Africa鈥檚 oil producers, whose export earnings will be buoyed by high global fuel prices. Angola, the region鈥檚 second-biggest oil producer after Nigeria, will be among the handful of countries in the region to register double-digit growth in 2012, the IMF predicts, with a forecasted GDP increase of 10.8 percent.

But whether the economic growth in these booming economies will make life any easier for the masses is still an open question.

Of course poverty is still deeply engrained in sub-Saharan Africa, despite the recent growth. In places, that poverty has been exacerbated by jumps in the prices of food, fuel, and other consumer goods. In Ghana, sub-Saharan Africa鈥檚 top performer in 2011, the average household still spends more than half of its income on food 鈥� a sure sign that money is still tight for many.

But economic growth across the region has made life easier for many. Sub-Saharan Africa鈥檚 middle class has been growing steadily since the 1980s, and it totaled more than 350 million in 2010 鈥� that鈥檚 more people than live in the entire United States.

Boosting trade within the region is key to making the most of that growing consumer wealth, experts say, and officials are expected to make some headway on economic integration this year.

Negotiations toward a 鈥淕rand Free Trade Area of Africa鈥� began in June and will pick back up at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa later this month. Officials say they aim to create a mega free trade zone that would stretch from Egypt to South Africa, covering some two dozen countries and more than half a billion people.