Frontier: Exploring the Top Ten Emerging Markets of Tomorrow

Conclusion: Journey's End

Journey's End

Our journey across frontier markets has taken us through poor, polluted slums, we've met people displaced and intimidated, we've encountered official corruption, police brutality and a beheading. In the Machiavellian world of developing-nation politics, one central bank chief we quizzed on the finer details of monetary policy was later hauled before a court to answer graft allegations; another was fired by the president for suggesting an inquiry into billions of missing dollars from oil exports. An opposition MP who warned us of mounting ethno-religious tensions was shot at by gunmen.

And yet, in the midst of turmoil, between the shanty towns and the glass towers of billionaires, we encountered courageous reformers and visionaries who are changing the landscape around them – people like Mwalimu Mati, the Kenyan lawyer building his database as a weapon against corruption, and Tin Oo, the 87-year-old comrade to Aung San Suu Kyi, driving democratic change after decades of confinement by the Burmese military he once served. Amid the latest financial crisis in Argentina, another octogenarian, Eduardo Eurnekian, works on drilling a tunnel through the Andes as a way to help provide the “competitive efficiency” he sees the next generation needing. In Romania, Fondul Proprietatea's analysts wage daily battles against malpractice at some of the biggest ...