The success of Ivory Coast is Africa’s best-kept secret

His parents moved to Ivory Coast in the 1980s, towards the end of a period of exceptional economic growth that economists dubbed the “Ivorian miracle”. They came to work, drawn by the country’s openness and wealth. Bernard Ayitee, a 38-year-old hedge-fund manager who combines Nigerian, Beninois, Togolese and Ghanaian ancestry, grew up there, but later studied and worked in France. A decade ago he returned, along with others who sensed that the country was on the brink of a turnaround. “This country is blessed,” he says. “Anything you try can work.”