Building a stronger Africa: Mo Ibrahim

CAIRO: Mo Ibrahim is trying to change the world. And he is doing so in more ways than one. The founder of one of Africa’s leading mobile companies, Celtel International, has used his business savvy to get wealthy; and he is using that affluence to make the continent follow his success politically and culturally through the creation of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in 2006 to promote good governance and leadership in Africa.
One of Time magazine’s top 100 most influential people, Ibrahim has won numerous awards as a result of his work in academia, business and philanthropy. In 2007, he was awarded the telecommunication industry’s highest accolade, the GSM Association Chairman’s Award, and in 2008 he won the BNP Paribas Prize for Philanthropy.
He says that his greatest achievement has been the foundation, which is proving that business leaders can take a leap into the political arena without falling trap to the corruption that often plagues the developing world. Through many of his foundation’s projects, Ibrahim is working toward helping people realize that Africa is not lost.
The man who made millions during the mobile boom of recent years says that poor leadership, or governance, is one of the strongest forces creating poverty and underdevelopment on the continent and that to change the political culture requires employing a top down strategy.
Analysts and observers have called the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, a new, comprehensive ranking of sub-Saharan African nations according to governance quality, a major step toward creating transparency and accountability. This index assesses national progress in the following five areas: sustainable economic development; human development (health and education); rule of law, transparency and corruption; participation and human rights; safety and security.
The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University has developed it under the direction of the Foundation Board. Known as The Ibrahim Index, and first published in September 2007, hopes are that its regular publication will lead to an improvement in the way citizens of sub-Saharan African countries are governed, and stimulate debate about the criteria, which comprise good governance.
“We want to give African civil society a tool to assess the performance of their governments. Every criteria used has been referenced and so is difficult to dispute,” he begins. “There are 57 measures in all that capture the key elements of government performance. So over a number of years a clear picture will emerge as to what progress has been made based on how countries move up and down the scale.
“Having traveled in Africa, having done business in Africa, having sat with customers, partners, governments, presidents, whomever—that really our problem in Africa is that of governance,” Ibrahim says. His goals are simple: create the mode that can transform the continent into a global leader. The potential is there; it simply needs to be “fostered.”
As a true philanthro-capitalist, Ibrahim has been able to address a number of issues often off-limits of the rigid structure of the business world. His goal is to be able to bring his knowledge, expertise and ultimately, money, into the fold in order to develop a continent long struggling with its direction and identity.
He points to women as a focal point to “moving forward” the continent. Women, in a number of statements Ibrahim has made in recent years, are key to the sustainable development of a nation and a location. Therefore, they play much more than a side role in his projects and goals.
“We are not treating gender as an add-on … if women work in Africa an average of of 11 or 12 hours per day, and men work an average of 4 hours a day—how come men are dominating women? I really think that African women are really the hope to take this continent forward,” he argues.
What is needed now, his foundation argues, is the willingness of all Africans, those in North Africa as well as in southern Africa, to step forward and push for change in dramatic new ways. The Sudanese national believes that only through initiative can one make the world a better place. It might sound a tad on the cliché, but that's fine for one of the richest people in Africa.
BM