— Freedom —

“If you want to make money, go to Africa” As a mobile communications pioneer, Mo Ibrahim became a billionaire. Now he sponsors a prize to reward African heads of state for exceptional leadership. Te award carries a higher monetary award than the Nobel Prize.

Interview by Daniel Ammann and Simon Brunner

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe Mo Ibrahim, 67, on the terrace of his home in Monaco.

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Tey’re undernourished. And the children the individual countries and their leaders can’t go to school. Of course, the relief or- and rank them in order. ganizations have the best intentions, but they’re not exactly doing justice to the re- Speaking of “good governance,”in your own ality of Africa. companies, corruption was never an issue. How did you manage this amid a swamp of Te negative image sticks to Africa like glue. corruption? Exactly. Even when it comes to African First of all, you must take a crystal-clear leaders, people in the West still think of stance against corruption, one that your the horrors of the past 50 years: Idi Amin, employees understand and support. I was Mobutu Sese Seko, Sani Abacha and all certain of one thing: Bribery hurts the o Ibrahim, few people the other kleptocrats. People don’t real- country, the company and its stakeholders. know Africa as well as ize that there are amazing heads of state Anyone who engages in bribery puts the you do. How great is its here in Africa. Who knows about Joa- company’s future at risk, because sooner or economic potential? quim Chissano in Mozambique, Festus later these things always come to light. I like to say, “If you Mogae in Botswana or Pedro Pires of the want to make money, go to Africa.” And Cape Verde Islands? Tese men are he- What concrete steps did you take to guard that’s not an emotional or political state- roes. Tey are our role models. We have to your billion-dollar enterprise against cor- Mment. We’re talking about facts. Just look make them better known – to Westerners ruption? at the World Bank data. Te return on and to our own people. Te Nobel Prize We put in place a system that promotes capital is higher than almost anywhere is awarded to outstanding scientists, and clean business dealings. A major problem else. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that’s great, but nobody explicitly recog- with bribery is that the people at head- Africa’s potential. Te continent is open nizes outstanding African leaders. quarters don’t know what’s happening in for new services, for trade, for large infra- the feld. When they visit their outposts, structure projects – and it is rich in raw And that’s why you initiated a prize that they’re assured that everything is in proper materials. awards more money than the Nobel Prize? order. At Celtel, my African telecommu- Te Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in nications frm, we solved that with a rule So what does the continent need in order to African Leadership is given to an outgoing that any expenditure over 30,000 US dol- prosper? head of state or government, who receives lars had to be approved by the full board of Capital. And that’s also why the return is 5 million US dollars over ten years upon directors. Every single one. Ten if some- so high. Te demand for capital is huge, leaving ofce and then 200,000 US dollars body pressured one of our employees for the supply limited. per year for life. a bribe, he could say that he had to get it Te prize is intended to acknowledge ex- approved frst. When word got around that In western countries, there’s a wide gap be- ceptional achievement. If a head of state this is the only way we do business, there tween Africa’s reputation and the reality as manages to free hundreds of thousands of were no more attempts to apply pressure. you describe it. people from poverty, improve the health For my generation, the image of Afri- and education systems, promote democ- What was it like to put this measure into ca was shaped by Tarzan movies. Tribal racy and – very important – leave of- practice? people living in the jungle, not wearing fce peacefully and on schedule, you have Te hardest part was being able to reach much in the way of clothes, eating each to appreciate that. I never tire of saying the entire board of directors quickly. I told other. We got the message: Tis is canni- it: Tese people are heroes. But nobody each board member, “Give me your private bal country. knows about them! phone number and your fax number, your wife’s number, the phone and fax at your Tat was in the 1940s and ’50s ... How are the heads of state evaluated? vacation home – and if you’re having an But the only thing to have changed since My foundation worked with Harvard afair, I need that person’s number too.” then is the cast of characters. When peo- University to develop the Ibrahim Index Tis was not always well received. ple in the West hear or read about Africa, of African Governance. It examines 88 it’s usually about civil wars, such as the statistical indicators, in categories from CEOs often complain that corruption is part ones raging now in Somalia or Mali, or rule of law to political participation to of life in certain parts of the world and that about famine. In the holiday season they sustainable economic opportunity. Simply they can’t do anything about it on their own. get those cards with touching images, the put, it is a comprehensive data set that lays Te business side tends to see itself in the children’s faces with the huge eyes. People out in great detail how well each country role of victim. I disagree. It is just as in- think to themselves, those Africans can’t in Africa is governed. With this wealth of volved as the government and has to be do it alone. Tey’re poor. Tey’re sick. data, we can evaluate the performance of punished if bribery happens. It doesn’t do

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a fnancial interest. Te pie just gets bigger. It’s a win-win situation.

Apart from the internal mechanisms, how important is a liberal environment for doing business? Freedom is fundamental if frms are to prosper. Just as important are clear rules and their enforcement. Tere has to be the right balance between a liberalized econo- my and a good amount of regulation.

What are the fundamental preconditions for doing business in a developing nation? Tere have to be clear and fair laws and legal certainty. Te laws can’t change from month to month. Also, the judiciary must function well. It has to be completely in- dependent, or else even the best laws don’t help. And fnally, justice must be swift. If a court takes ten years to come to a decision, it’s of little use. By then, one of the parties involved is bankrupt.

Advertisement for Celtel in Niger: Mo Ibrahim founded the pan-African Is Africa still poor because these precondi- telecommunications company in tions have not been met? 1998 and sold it fve years later for To a certain degree, yes. In fairness, it 3.4 billion US dollars. any good to say “Te government is cor- must be said that the rule of law has made rupt, that’s how the system works.” No. great progress in many African countries. It’s critical for companies to understand Nowadays, I’d rather go to court in Africa that they can be part of the solution. Te than in Russia or China. Te judiciary is business world is part of the system – and certainly not perfect, but it’s also not as capable of changing it. bad as people outside Africa like to think. Many courts are reasonable. But it’s true You have high expectations for corporations. that without good government, Africa will Ultimately, business must always promote not make progress. freedom, the rule of law and the protec- tion of property, because corruption and What role should development aid play for nepotism hurt corporations. Africa? I am convinced that the continent can do You founded two corporations and sold them this on its own. We don’t need help, and for more than 4 billion US dollars in total. we don’t need development money. What In each case, the employees benefted too, be- we need is capital. Last year, about 50 bil- cause they held shares. What’s the advantage lion US dollars of foreign direct invest- of this? ments came in, and we could have used Two things are important here: fairness about 200 billion US dollars. Don’t get me and incentives. A company’s employees wrong, I have nothing against humanitar- must view themselves as partners; it’s their ian aid and what it can do after a tsunami company too. Tis creates completely dif- in Asia, a tornado in the United States or ferent dynamics and attitude. What better even a civil war in Africa. motivation could there be? Sometimes, shareholders are skeptical about a high What’s your opinion of microfnancing? rate of employee participation. We tell Microfnancing is good for promot- them, you never lose if the employees have ing small initiatives, such as giving a

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seamstress the opportunity to buy her own transaction with Ugandan shillings and public. In those countries, the government sewing machine. It doesn’t create thou- Tanzanian shillings? Tanks to the mobile often controls the police, the military and sands of jobs, but for that woman it can phone, they know the exact exchange rate even the media. Mobile phones have made mean a huge improvement in her situ- instantly. Tis is highly efcient and builds a diference. ation. It’s like an orchestra, where every prosperity. instrument has a part to play. In what way? What do you see as the future of such It has become more difcult for regimes You have a degree in engineering and mobile services? to hide what they do. If something hap- you run mobile telecommunication Africa today is the leader in mobile bank- pens, the news spreads like wildfre. Also, companies. How important is the mobile ing. Te future of retail banking will be nowadays people can exchange informa- phone for Africa? mobile, even in Western countries – it’s tion freely and organize resistance away It would be impossible to overestimate its simply faster and more practical. Africa from the state’s watchful eye. Te mobile socioeconomic and political signifcance. is very advanced when it comes to mobile phone played a central role in the “Arab It’s immense. Africa is the world’s second telecommunications. Celtel did away with Spring.” In the past, we lived in the dark, largest continent, and yet its population roaming fees ten years ago. Is there a mo- so to speak. My generation had only one had long been technologically isolated. bile network in your area that ofers the daily newspaper, one radio station and one Very few people could aford a land line. same rate for domestic calls and interna- TV station – and they all belonged to the And if they did have the money for it, tional calls to neighboring countries? government. Now we have turned on the they had to wait for years to get it, because lights. Te mobile telephone has given the state monopolies operated so inef- What else can we learn from Africa? society a tool for freedom, for resisting op- ciently. Almost nobody had a television. (laughs) I don’t know whether I’m in a po- pression. People had access to very little informa- sition to answer that. Te West likes to tell tion about the world, or even about their us what we need to do. We can all learn own country. Te telecommunications from each other, but we shouldn’t be tell- industry brought a revolution. It made an ing each other what to do. active, informed civil society possible – and it created wealth. Te mobile phone is used for many difer- ent purposes in developing nations. Which of Wealth? these have you not anticipated? Mobile banking – as in transferring I’ve already seen services that help expose money using a mobile phone – fundamen- corruption. If an ofcial solicits a bribe, tally changed Africa. For you in Switzer- you can take a picture and send it to a land, it’s normal to have a bank account certain place to report him. Or there’s this and make transactions online or in a local app for personal safety; if you’re attacked, branch. And you have a variety of credit the app sends a text message to all the cards. Until a short time ago, none of that mobile phones in the area and to the local was the case in Africa. Banks had branch- radio station. es almost exclusively in the major cities, and they served a small circle of business You mentioned that mobile telecommunica- customers and rich members of the elite. tions also have political efects. Imagine a business that had to get along In repressive regimes, the rights of citizens without fnancial service providers! are restricted. Tey can’t communicate freely, express their opinions, assemble in And so, mobile banking ...... gave millions of people access to a bank. Now they can send and receive money with minimal transaction fees. Tis has Mo Ibrahim was born in Northern Sudan in 1946, the son of a cotton trader, and was educated in brought lasting improvement to people’s Egypt. He worked for the Sudanese telephone company, earned his doctorate in Britain and then was lives. A woman whose mother lives in employed by British Telecom in its new telecommunications branch. In 1989, Ibrahim founded his own a village several days’ journey away can consultancy company, which he sold in 2000 for 618 million US dollars. In 1998, he founded Celtel, send her money within seconds. A farmer a pan-African telecommunications company, which he sold fve years later for 3.4 billion US dollars. Today, his activity is mainly philanthropic, through his Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Te foundation no longer has to make the trek to town publishes an annual report on governance in Africa (the Ibrahim Index of African Governance) and simply to order seeds. Two moneychang- recognizes outstanding heads of state and government with the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in ers in a border region want to complete a African Leadership. His daughter is active in his foundation; his son is an actor.

74 — Bulletin 3 / 2013 Photos: Antonio Zambardino / contrasto / laif; F. Scholz / Arco Images / dpa picture-alliance / Keystone; Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo / Keystone; Perre Hounsfeld – Pool / Sipa Press / Dukas; Spiekermeier / Sipa Press / Dukas — Freedom —

1) “Te mobile phone played a central role in the Arab Spring.” Cairo in January 2011.

2) “It doesn’t take a genius to recognize Africa’s potential.” View of the business district in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Past winners of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership:

3) Pedro Pires, Cape Verde (2011) 4) Festus Mogae, Botswana (2008) 5) Joaquim Alberto Chissano, Mozambique (2007), with Mo Ibrahim

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