The BRICs? So yesterday. China? Talk about growing pains. The U.S. and E.U.? Lookin’ a little past their primes these days. So what is going to be the big economic success story of the 21^st century?

According to Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Britain and founder of the Tony Blair Africa Governance, Africa fits the bill.

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“I think it’s where Latin America was 20 years ago, with some even greater possibilities,” Blair tells The Daily Ticker on the sidelines of the Milken Institute’s 2013 Global Conference.

According to the Milken Institute, seven out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. Blair says the number of democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa has grown from three to 25 over the past 25 years, and he cites a growing middle class.

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Blair is working with presidents of African

Employers added 165,000 to payrolls in April, pushing the unemployment rate down to 7.5% from 7.6% -- the lowest rate since December 2008. Economists had expected the rate would remain unchanged from March and payrolls would grow by 145,000. In the latest jobs report, as in many previous ones, government payrolls fell, declining by 11,000, while private payrolls rose by 176,000. Manufacturing payrolls, however, were unchanged.

Payroll gains for March were revised upward to 138,000 from 88,000 and for February to 332,00 from 268,000.

Despite the better than expected numbers, William Dickens, professor of economics and social policy at Northeastern University, says today's job report is basically "more of the same." He tells The Daily Ticker, "We've been in a very, very slow recovery now since 2009 and what we've been seeing is a very, very slow decline in the unemployment rate... increases in employment that barely keep up with the growth of the population."

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