It's not complicated

Why is Africa so poor? There are many reasons, of course, but the biggest, most obvious one is the easiest to fix. Malawi's top personal income tax rate is 40%, which doesn't sound out of line, until you realize that it's hit at a mere annual income of $933.71. These are fairly typical numbers on the continent. It's hard to save enough money to invest and think past the range of the moment when your government takes so much of your income that you can barely survive each day. Combine this with the tremendous corruption endemic there (which is also partly a symptom of the tax system), and it's no wonder that African economies don't perform well. I'm not saying cutting taxes will solve all of their woes, but it will help and will make the other problems easier to deal with.