It's easy to call Ghana or Botswana success stories...they are. But the countries that'd have to be the engines of a vibrant sub-Saharan Africa just aren't in place yet. Nigeria and Ethiopia would be the heavyweight titans of a functioning Africa, but the former is plagued by insurgencies, corruption, and excess violence and the latter is just barely on its feet, with deep-seated ethnic and religious tensions that could bring the whole state tumbling down. Ethiopia's dramatically high growth rate is as fragile as a hummingbird because the fundamentals still aren't entirely sound. When those two countries start performing dynamically and become stable, safe places to invest, the rest of Africa may follow suit.
(That South Africa would be the third engine of a successful Africa goes without saying and thus, is not actually said above)
Several regionally-federated currency zones would be nice, and Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi going onto an East Africa Shilling in 2015, if it happens, is a nice step in that direction.
There would also be a fourth engine... but, ahhh, that would be the DRC.
