Mo Ibrahim

Every man, woman and child knows about Mugabe, but people say, 'Mogae, who is that?'

Literacy in Tunisia is almost 100%. It's amazing - no country in the region or even in Asia can match Tunisia in education.

The problem is that many times people suspend their common sense because they get drowned in business models and Harvard business school teachings.

Remember, 2000 was the year of the dot-com bust. The telecom industry lost about $2 trillion in market capital at that time.

Now is the time for Afro-realism: for sound policies based on honest data, aimed at delivering results.

Celtel established a mobile phone network in Africa at a time when investors told me that there was no market for mobile phones there.

Mobile communications had been around for a long time, but always as a limited market, constrained by the radio spectrum.

It's time Africa started listening to our young people instead of always telling them what to do.

Retail banking in Africa is very weak. You can't go to a village and get money from an ATM or visit a branch of the bank. So people have to use the Internet.

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

A narrative that branded Africa as little more than an economic, political and social basket case was not likely to provide the investment needed to drive development.

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out of U.N. - international, publicly funded bodies that neither you or I know their names, because they are completely outdated and still publicly funded because there are no sunset clauses.