Words matter. These are the best Mo Ibrahim Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
We need to keep pressure on our own governments to force more and more transparency.
Now is the time for Afro-realism: for sound policies based on honest data, aimed at delivering results.
Increasing extremism – across Africa and the world – must be understood in the context of the failure of our leaders properly to manage diversity within their borders.
Business is global. Countries need to react to that; taxes need to be paid where profit arises.
Of course, Nelson Mandela, everybody knows Nelson Mandela. I mean, he’s a great gift not only for Africa but for the whole world, actually. But do not expect everybody to be a Nelson Mandela.
There’s no point in trying to hoard money after life, so better really to share with people.
I don’t subscribe to the narrative that Africa is backward because of colonialism.
I came to the conclusion that unless you are ruled properly, you cannot move forward. Everything else is second. Everything.
Every man, woman and child knows about Mugabe, but people say, ‘Mogae, who is that?’
Electoral turnout is falling among the young, and political apathy is on the rise.
From my father, I learnt kindness and how to talk straight.
Intimidation, harassment and violence have no place in a democracy.
Africa should not again face isolation or stigmatisation based on ignorance and unrepresentative imagery.
The problem is that many times people suspend their common sense because they get drowned in business models and Harvard business school teachings.
I ended up being a businessman unwittingly. I wanted to be an academic; I wanted to be like Einstein.
I’m uncomfortable, frankly, with the hype about Africa. We went from one extreme… to, like, Africa now is the best thing after sliced bread.
Experience shows that when political governance and economic management diverge, overall development becomes unsustainable.
More people smile at me now I’m richer.
Societies are not sustainable without institutions.
I really don’t have heroes in business; I never looked up at business people.
It is very difficult for any dictator or any incumbent to falsify the results of an election and just get away with it.
For citizens to become fully engaged in holding their leadership to account, accurate information is required to see where action is needed, to measure the results of policies and programmes, to build support for courageous decisions and to consolidate political legitimacy.
It was a no-brainer that the cellular route would be a great success in Africa.
Everywhere in Africa, you see Indian, Chinese, Brazilian businesses. Other than Coca Cola and the oil companies, it is very rare to see American businesses.
The fight against Ebola cannot undermine the fight against poverty.
Positive market incentives operating in the public interest are too few and far between, and are also up against a seemingly never-ending expansion of perverse incentives and lobbying.
I never had a doubt that I wanted to do engineering.
Africa’s success stories are delivering the whole range of the public goods and services that citizens have a right to expect and are forging a path that we hope more will follow.
Nobody in Africa loves to be a beggar or a recipient of aid. Everywhere I go in Africa, people say, ‘When are we going to stand up on our feet?’
The issue with international institutions is that there is a crisis of legitimacy. Trust in these institutions is a serious problem.
Cape Verde produces good people.
Computers are very expensive and they need power, and that can be a problem in Africa.
What do you do if you’re an executive who resigns? You declare yourself a consultant.
Literacy in Tunisia is almost 100%. It’s amazing – no country in the region or even in Asia can match Tunisia in education.
We cannot expect loyalty to an unjust regime.
Remarkably, governments are beginning to embrace the idea that nothing enhances democracy more than giving voice and information to everybody in the country. Why not open their books if they have nothing to hide?
Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world’s last ‘New Frontier:’ a kind of ‘it-continent.’
Women in Africa are really the pillar of the society, are the most productive segment of society, actually. They do agriculture.
Sudan has been an experiment that resonated across Africa: if we, the largest country on the continent, reaching from the Sahara to the Congo, bridging religions, cultures and a multitude of ethnicities, were able to construct a prosperous and peaceful state from our diverse citizenry, so too could the rest of Africa.
Look at the international bodies that came out of U.N. – international, publicly funded bodies that neither you or I know their names, because they are completely outdated and still publicly funded because there are no sunset clauses.
Modern slavery is a hidden crime and notoriously difficult to measure.
I come from a typical family.
People never confess to failure. They should.
If we are to build grassroots respect for the institutions and processes that constitute democracy, the state must treat its citizens as real citizens rather than as subjects.
If we cannot accurately measure poverty, we surely cannot accurately measure our efforts to tackle it.
Experience counts in government even more than in business.
Challenging vested interests requires a government’s full commitment.
Nobody messes with China, nobody messes with the United States, or with Europe, because these are really big entities with a lot of clout and a lot of economic power. They have a place at the table.
Africa was perceived – it still is to some extent – as a place which is very difficult to do business in. I don’t share that view.
Not any amount of aid is going to move Africa forward.
While the Marshall Plan was important for Europe’s recovery, Europe’s prosperity was really built on economic integration and policy coherence.
Corruption exists everywhere.
Multinationals don’t pay taxes in Africa – we all know that.
There is a crisis of leadership and governance in Africa, and we must face it.
Governance has been at the heart of the work of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations and is a clear focus in its report, ‘Now for the Long Term.’
The mobile industry changed Africa.
The brain drain from Africa has been reversed.
Many Africans are used to a life where they get up in the morning and don’t know what they’re going to do that day.
Before any investor goes into any country, he is looking for the exit door.
I don’t even have a small boat. I don’t even have a toy boat in my bathtub. I don’t have a biplane, I don’t have anything. Those things are toys, and I don’t need them to be happy.
Mobile phones play a really wonderful role in enabling civil society. As well as empowering people economically and socially, they are a wonderful political tool.
When I was young, there was only one TV channel, sponsored by the government, and it only broadcast things like what the leader had for breakfast. There was no real media.
The leakage of information means you’re going to be able to read everybody’s e-mail.
The African Development Bank is one of the most aggressive advocates of regional integration.
African leaders work really under severe limitations and constraints.
I think we need to look at ourselves first. We should practice what we’re preaching. Otherwise, we are hypocrites.
Nobody can come and develop Africa on behalf of Africans.
You fly for hours and hours and hours over Africa to go from one place to another.
What we need in Africa is balanced development. Economic success cannot be a replacement for human rights or participation or democracy… it doesn’t work.
Rwanda really did take very strong steps towards development. I mean, this place is unrecognizable. There’s a very good management of economy and resources – it’s a success story, and that’s great.
The Security Council represents the situation from 1945 – you had the Allies who won the war who occupied that. The defeated guys – the Germans and Japan – were out. The occupied countries had no voice. That was fine in ’45, but today, Germany rules Europe, frankly. They are driving Europe but have no voice.
It’s time Africa started listening to our young people instead of always telling them what to do.
Transfer pricing is causing huge problems in Africa.
Africa is progressing but maybe not in the way you think it is. Even if the overall picture looks good, we must all remain vigilant and not get complacent.
All we hear about Africa in the West is Darfur, Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia, as if that is all there is.
Young people, all too often, find their interests overlooked and their voices ignored.
You get over your first love by falling in love with something new.
