Benin's Economic Bar Mitzvah

Our little country is all grown up, not a boy anymore but a man.

Hyperbole? Maybe, but things have happened in the last 24 hours that should go a long way toward moving Benin out of extreme poverty and into, well, relative poverty.

As some of you dear readers may know, before coming to Benin I (Steve) worked in the financial media in both the PR and journalism capacities. I got my fair share of perspective representing international law firms when the aborted Dubai Ports deal went down in the US, and I was writing on Islamic finance at a time when DP World was putting together some of the largest Islamic investment funds ever raised. To the latter, I even had the privilege of interviewing attorneys doing financing deals for DP World - some of the most respected in the world for their specialty. This is a really well run company, not one that jerks around with crooked nickel and dime bureaucrats or half-baked infrastructure pipe dreams.

So imagine what my reaction was when I saw this:

DP World keen to manage Benin's Cotonou port

and this:

Dubai World to invest and partner with Republic of Benin in major tourism plan

Evidently, the work the Millennium Challenge Corporation and members of the national government have been doing to clean up corruption at the port has strengthened the structural foundation to the point where top management companies believe they can turn a profit with it. And while it may be a foreign company in a land where neo-colonial fears run deep, a functioning port will do nothing but help all Benin's other industries better succeed in the global economy.

Mazel Tov Benin.