Yet Africa today is often the worst place to live. One of its biggest problems is that of global perception: the entire continent is blamed for the problems in Zimbabwe or Darfur. (Curiously, no such blame is attached to Asia for the excesses of Myanmar or North Korea.) And Africa’s leaders are often to blame for its unsavory image : kleptomaniacs and civil war exact a predictable, terrible toll. It has been estimated that an average war, civil war or insurgency shrinks each affected country’s by 15 percent a year, with continent losing $18 billion annually as a result. Africa continues to be crippled by higher tariffs and costs, its countries even limiting trading with each other –though the African Union, which replaced the tired Organization of African States, offers some hope.