In the search for high-growth regions, South African companies such as FirstRand and Massmart have been pressured into planting more of their flags on the African continent, with West Africa being singled out as one of the strongest areas for expansion. Corporations are being challenged to match the success of MTN, Africa's biggest mobile operator, which receives close to 37% of its revenue from Nigeria alone.But just as there are worrying signs about South Africa's growth, these are also not easy times for the region."The last two years represent some of the most turbulent in the last decade for the West African region - both from political and economic points of view," says Manji Cheto, a West Africa analyst at Teneo, a global corporate advisory firm."The confluence of global headwinds, political instability in Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau, and Ebola in the Mano River region has resulted in the dampening of investor sentiment."story_article_left1The evidence, Cheto says, is in the magnitude of the drop in foreign direct investment to West Africa relative to other regions: the region's 23% drop in 2014 significantly outpaced that of East Africa (12%) and Southern Africa (11%).Ghana, until a few years ago one of Africa's crown jewels - touted as a model for emerging market prosperity and sound economic management - is a case in point. Buoyed by its new-found oil-producing status about five years ago, the economy grew by a whopping 14% in 2011.The country's fiscal appetites also swelled, and the government began running substantial budget deficits.When the bust came - the prices of gold and cocoa, its two major exports, fell in 2012-13 - the country was ill-prepared. It turned to the International Monetary Fund for a bail-out, economic growth fell to the lowest levels in two decades, inflation soared, and the currency fell to record lows against the dollar. Electricity woes have compounded the situation, triggering citizen unrest.Last year, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea emerged as the epicentres of an Ebola epidemic that claimed more than 11000 lives, and is estimated by the World Bank to have suppressed economic growth by at least $2.2-billion (about R30-billion) in 2015.Nigeria, the regional giant, was briefly touched by Ebola, causing a slight downward revision of 2014 GDP estimates. Economic growth this year has halved relative to 2014 figures, fallout from the global slump in the price of oil, on which the country depends for 70% of government revenues.Complicating Nigeria's dire situation is a devastating insurgency by Boko Haram, a terrorist group that rivals the Islamic State in the scale of its ambitions, and ruthlessness. More than two million Nigerians have been displaced by the insurgency.These troubles have been exacerbated by the drop in commodity prices, upon which much of the region depends: oil in Nigeria and Guinea; iron ore in Liberia and Sierra Leone. While the price of cocoa has been on the rise in recent months, production levels in Ghana have dropped, inexplicably.Francophone West Africa has not fared much better. Boko Haram's sphere of influence has steadily expanded to Niger and Cameroon and Chad. Most recently, Burkina Faso has faced a series of leadership tussles.Three to five years ago, optimism - excitement, even - was the default approach to the region, and the entire continent.During the first decade of the 21st century, six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world were in sub-Saharan Africa. The growth was not concentrated in any region: the chart-toppers came from east (Ethiopia, Rwanda), west (Nigeria, Chad) and south (Angola, Mozambique).story_article_right2West Africa was an important part of the story on account of Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, which overtook South Africa to become Africa's largest economy in 2014.Ghana, which in 2007 discovered oil in commercial quantities and started producing three years later, rebased its economy and graduated to middle-income status.Sierra Leone's economic growth leapt into the double digits in 2011, on the back of soaring iron ore prices.Around that time a civil war that had plagued Ivory Coast ended, paving the way for Alassane Ouattara, presumed winner of a 2010 disputed election, to form a government. Senegal defeated an attempt by Abdoulaye Wade to cling to power and ushered in a democratically elected government. These developments sent a clear message to the world that the continent was no longer bound by the old rules.Next year, Ghana will go to the polls. It now has one of the longest unbroken spells of peaceful democratic transition on the continent.Next month, presidential elections are due in three West African countries: Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Guinea. Burkina Faso is a source of worry."The risk of widespread electoral violence appears low in [Ivory Coast] and moderate in Guinea - primarily due to the continued dialogue between political opponents," says Cheto. "However, the stakes appear quite high in Burkina Faso and this gives rise to some reason for concern."But the region's countries are learning to work together to tackle urgent problems. There's still a lot going for the region. Even though the road to full recovery is a long and uncertain one, the worst of the Ebola outbreak is now in the past. The region's countries are learning to work together.On the eastern flank of the region, Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin and Chad are now on the verge of deploying an African Union-backed force to rout Boko Haram. Regional heads of state wasted little time intervening in the aftermath of recent leadership crises in Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau.Pressure on Burkina Faso's coup leaders by the Economic Community of West African States resulted in a swift restoration of the overthrown government. Six heads of state were present at the ceremony on Wednesday to reinstate President Michel Kafando.And, this year, the region finally agreed on a set of unifying customs tariffs, to be implemented in full over the next five years. Sadly, the pace of work on a regional highway connecting Lagos, Nigeria, in the east with Nouakchott, Mauritania, in the west - running across 15 countries, covering more than 4500km - continues to be dishearteningly sluggish, decades after it was proposed.But despite West African concerns, Nigeria will continue to attract attention on account of its economic and demographic importance - it is projected to be the third most populous country in the world, after India and China, by 2050.story_article_left3Investors are nervous about the apparent lack of economic direction from the new government - which has let four months roll by without a cabinet.President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to name his cabinet before the end of this month ."There's lot of interest in the cabinet," says Philippe de Pontet, head of the Africa office at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. "Will it be credible, how independent will the finance minister be?"Economist Bismarck Rewane, CEO of Financial Derivatives, a Lagos-based financial advisory firm, thinks the economic policy of the central government will shift away from the previous government's emphasis on growth to one of development.For this to happen, the government will need to find the cash for investment in its ambitious infrastructure and social-spending programmes.With oil prices projected to remain depressed into 2016 at least, this is going to be a herculean task.Nigeria, because of its clout in the region - it accounts for more than half of the combined economic output - will always be a bellwether for West Africa watchers. As Bolaji Aluko, a Nigerian academic, summed it up in testimony before the US Congress in May 2000, "As Nigeria goes, so goes West Africa".Ogunlesi is West Africa editor of The Africa Report..