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Vaccines for Development
| African entrepreneur helps clean up African corruption |
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| Written by Alex Singleton | |
| Friday, 27 October 2006 | |
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Last night the GI's Tom Clougherty and I attended the launch of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, set up by the founder of Celtel, a leading African mobile phone network. They hosted a superb function at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London's Knightsbridge to explain their work - I'm photographed on the right at the event with Kenya's former anti-corruption czar John Githongo (taken, aptly, on a camera phone). The Foundation has set itself the bold and important job of encouraging African presidents to govern cleanly and behave constitutionally - an area where governmental donor organisations have, sadly, had little success. Mo Ibraham - who says has never paid a bribe in his life - has made a fortune as a successful capitalist. Now he's using some of the proceeds to establish a prize fund to reward African leaders who have resisted temptation. Here at the Institute, we have always been supporters of prize funds, especially in order to encourage the development of pharmaceuticals for neglected diseases that affect poor countries and for cleaner technologies to fight climate change. But the idea of rewarding good governance is a novel one and one to be commended. Many of today's most interesting endeavours for improving the lives of ordinary Africans come not from the traditional governmental donors but from private organisations like the Clinton Global Initiative, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and now from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Combined with NGOs like Mercy Corps, Medecins Sans Frontiers and Technoserve, the role of the private sector has never had a more important role in making the developing world a better place. People are not leaving Africa's fate to the failed "big push" ideas that dominate DFID et al, but rolling up their sleeves and making a difference themselves. |