Mohammed “Mo” Ibrahim born 3 May 1946, is a Sudanese British businessman and founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which was established in 2006 to support good government and exceptional leadership of the African continent.
Ibrahim holds a bachelor’s degree from Alexandria University in Electrical Engineering, a master’s degree from the University of Bradford in Electronics and Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Mobile Communications from the University of Birmingham.
The business mogul has a distinguished business career. In 1989, he founded Mobile System International (MSI), a consultancy and software company as well as Celtel International, one of Africa’s leading mobile telephone companies which pioneered mobile services in Africa. Both companies were sold. The former was bought by the Marconi company in 2000 and the latter was sold in 2004 to a Kuwait Mobile Telecommunication Company (now Zain) for $3.4 billion.
Following the sale of Celtel, he set up Mo Ibrahim Foundation, to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, to evaluate nations’ performance. In 2007, he initiated Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which awards $5 million to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents and democratically transfer power to their successors. The first recipient of this prize was the former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano.
According to Ibrahim, progress, development and peace are the fundamentals for a bright future for the African continent. “Democracy and rule of law are very important and we really need to pay a lot of attention to them. But this is not the whole story. People cannot eat democracy. If we have democracy, but there’s no food on the table or we have famine, what we’re going to do with democracy,” he said.
He also said: “We need peace in Africa because conflict destroys the government and our chances of moving forward. We need to develop skills, we need more technical schools because that is education for employment. People can find work with it. It’s important to listen to young people because the future belongs to them, not to us old men.”
Since 2010, Ibrahim has been supporting the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a United Nations initiative which aims to spread the full benefits of broadband services to unconnected peoples.
In 2008, he was selected for the TIME ‘Top 100’ list and ranked first in the annual Powerlist of the most influential Black Britons.
Dr Ibrahim has received numerous honorary degrees and fellowship from a range of academic institutions including University of Birmingham, Bradford University, De Montfort University – Leicester, Imperial College – London, London Business School and more, as well as a recepient of a number of awards including The GSM Association’s Chairman’s Award for Lifetime Achievement (2007), The Economist Innovation Award for Social & Economic Innovation (2007), BNP Paribas Prize for Philanthropy (2008), Oslo Business for Peace Award (2009), Raymond Georis Prize for Innovative Philanthropy in Europe (2010) and more.
Mo Ibrahim is the Co-founder and Co-chair of the Africa Europe Foundation, which was launched in 2020 to reset and bolster Africa-Europe relations.
