Quotes from Mo Ibrahim

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.'

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.'

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.

You fly for hours and hours and hours over Africa to go from one place to another.

Rule of law is the most important element in any civil society.

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.

When you ask people what they think of Africa, they think of AIDS, genocide, disasters, famine.

I left Sudan when I was 25 or 26 years old. If I had stayed, I would never have ended up being an entrepreneur. You can have the qualities, but if you don't have the environment, you just wither away. It's like a fish: take it out of water, it will not survive.

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.

If economic progress is not translated into better quality of life and respect for citizens' rights, we will witness more Tahrir Squares in Africa.

The state and its elites must be subject, in theory and in practice, to the same laws that its poorest citizens are.

I think we need to look at ourselves first. We should practice what we're preaching. Otherwise, we are hypocrites.

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.

There is a crisis of leadership and governance in Africa, and we must face it.

Billions of dollars are thrown at African countries.

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.

I really don't have heroes in business; I never looked up at business people.

Modern slavery is a hidden crime and notoriously difficult to measure.

The African Development Bank is one of the most aggressive advocates of regional integration.

Far from being hopeless, Africa is full of hope and potential, maybe more so than any other continent. The challenge is to ensure that its potential is utilised.

Tony Blair is paid $500,000 for one speech, and no one asks how he is going to spend it.

The Ibrahim Index is a tool to hold governments to account and frame the debate about how we are governed.

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.

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.