The Africa you haven't heard about: why Africa is no longer the disaster zone many Americans think it is.

• Author: Kron, Josh
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

Africa gets a bad rap. The images that come to mind for most Americans are of famine, genocide, corrupt governments, and bloody wars.

So it may come as a surprise to hear that a number of experts are suggesting a new way to think of the continent: as an economic dynamo.

While Europe and the United States struggle to get their economies growing again after the global recession, the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) expects Africa to have the fastest-growing economy of any continent over the next five years.

Six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies from 2001 to 2010 were in Africa, according to The Economist magazine. And looking forward, the I.M.F. says that from 2011 to 2015, African countries will fill 7 of the top 10 spots.*

What's driving Africa's growth? Two major factors are a burst of international investment and the rise of entrepreneurs, many of them women.

International companies, especially from China, are investing heavily in Africa. Vast deposits of oil, gas, and minerals are being discovered. Goldman Sachs, a U.S. investment banking firm, recently compared business opportunities in Africa to those in China in the early 1990s.

Consider Lesotho in southern Africa, the continent's biggest apparel exporter to the U.S. The Nien Hsing Textile Company of Taiwan has opened three factories and a denim mill in Lesotho, employing more than 8,000 people. Workers make jeans for Levi's and other American companies.

"While America may largely misperceive Africa as a disaster zone, China sees the continent's promise," says New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. "Everywhere you turn in Africa these days there are Chinese businesspeople seeking to invest in raw materials and agriculture. But American businesses seem to be only beginning to wake up to the economic potential."

That potential is enormous. This year, according to the World Bank, a third of the economies of the 49 sub-Saharan African countries will grow 6 percent or more. (The U.S. economy is on track to grow about 2 percent this year.) And the number of Africans living in poverty has fallen roughly 10 percentage points--from 58 percent to 48 percent--over the past decade.

Another factor in Africa's new growth is the surge in female entrepreneurs. According to the World Bank, the rate of female entrepreneurship is higher in Africa than in any other region of the world.

"Women in the private sector represent a powerful source of economic growth and opportunity," says...