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6. Africa, Business Destination <BR> <BR><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>Togo is like much of West Africa — small, poor and an occasional producer of sensational soccer players — but for the bank. Lomé, Togo's capital, is home to Ecobank, a 21-year-old pan-African retail and corporate bank that, according to CEO Arnold Ekpe, employs 11,000 people in 620 branches in 26 countries, with a balance sheet of $8 billion. <BR> <BR>Unlike a lot of other banks, Ecobank is expanding. It has opened 200 branches since 2006 and aims to set up in three more countries by June. What's more, it actually makes money: annual profits were up 47%, to $191 million, in 2007 and up 32%, to $104 million, for the third quarter of 2008 alone, the latest period for which figures are available. Even more extraordinary, it is managing to raise money in the "crunched" capital markets — $700 million since August. Granted, the world's banks are in a historic crisis. That does not make any less arresting the thought that some of the best-performing bankers on the planet right now come from a place called Togo. "Warren Buffett is based in Nebraska," says Ekpe. "It's not where you are. It's what you do." <BR> <BR>Up to a point. In Africa's case, the perception has long been that where you are renders all but irrelevant what you do. Africa is hopeless, a place of war and famine seemingly populated almost entirely by tyrants and children with flies in their eyes. According to this view, if Africa generates any kind of growth, it is in suffering — and in the overseas aid sent to address that, now a $40-billion-a-year industry. Naturally, with a new appeal every year and a new disaster every other, some people have begun to wonder if all that money is doing any good. They argue that aid creates dependence, fuels corruption, undermines democracy and stifles development. They have written books with titles like The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working (by an ex-spokesman for the World Bank in Africa) and Dead Aid (by a Zambia-born former Goldman Sachs investment banker). <BR> <BR>...<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
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