Africa and Middle East Telecoms - boom or bust

Synopsis

The reality for Africa - a continent of some fifty-plus countries and almost one billion people - is that there is a wide range of very different cases. The countries most affected by the crisis are those with economies that depend heavily on resources exports, like Botswana (diamonds) and Equatorial Guinea (oil) - and other oil exporting countries such as Gabon, Angola, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria also don't fare too well. Middle Eastern countries however have not suffered so much but the effects have certainly been felt. The countries that have suffered most are generally those with the most open economies. Countries such as Yemen or Syria have registered very little change, if any. Iraq and Lebanon have continued to grow because they were coming from very low rates due to past political turmoil. Qatar is so immensely wealthy and its rate of growth so high that a considerable drop still left it at over 11%.