Poor terms of trade, how many commodity producing countries can enjoy a lot of windfall money if they are in low margin commodities. The excessive focus on commodities where African countries are price takers is very problematic, Zambia relied on copper and when the price collapsed they faced decades long problems. It was the emergence of China and its demand for those resources that helped in commodities like copper,iron ore , chrome and so on. Most mining activities are also very capital intensive that even when the sectors are booming many people do not benefit, in some of the biggest mining countries more people actually rely on agriculture than they do on these resources given that they are accounted for by big companies and the Government. The absence of manufacturing or the lack of sufficient supporting infrastructure for such activities is far more problematic especially in the bigger countries. Power generation is very low and South Africa accounts for much of the generation in Sub-Saharan Africa and that is one reason why many countries do not manufacture much. The biggest problem IMO is that many Governments have never taken kindly to the contribution of educated Africans who are not affiliated with them in some ways. Other countries like Malaysia and Brazil seem to have developed useful and comprehensive development plans that go beyond the "we need to move one step further in the value chain" that is very popular. Palm oil is one such industry that did not exist in Malaysia, there are accounts that they actually imported it from West Africa in the 60s, and yet they are now the number one producer. They have been creating new industries as well in addition to whatever old ones they had.
