Posted on 04/01/2007 7:54:47 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LONDON (AFP) - Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan was named as the chairman of the six-person committee that will judge the world's biggest prize on Sunday, awarded to departing African statesmen for promoting good governance.
Annan will be joined on the committee for the annual Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership by the UN Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari, former UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson, and the Special Adviser to the Director-General of UNESCO, Aicha Bah Diallo.
Also on the committee are Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former finance and foreign minister of Nigeria, and Salim Ahmed Salim, the former Tanzanian prime minister and former secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity.
"Good governance and leadership are central to finding solutions to the vast challenges that face Africa," Annan, who is Ghanaian, was to say at the announcement of the committee in Geneva, after the group met over the weekend.
"We hope the Mo Ibrahim prize will help to energise African leadership and encourage a new generation of young leaders to step up to this most urgent of challenges," said Annan, whose term as secretary ended at the end of last year.
The award, named after the Sudanese mobile phone tycoon funding it, will land a former head of state or government from sub-Saharan Africa with a five-million-dollar (3.75-million-euro) prize split over 10 years with 200,000 dollars annually for the rest of their lives.
A further 200,000 dollars a year will be made available for good causes espoused by the former leader.
It will be awarded for the first time this year, and far exceeds the 1.3 million dollars given to recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The annual Ibrahim Index for African Governance, also run by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, will rank the countries according to governance quality, with the idea of showing African citizens how their rulers match up.
"I am delighted to have all these people here today," Ibrahim was to say in Geneva.
"With this Prize and the Ibrahim Index, we hope to make a unique contribution to assessing governance and recognising leadership in Africa."
The committee will draw on research provided by the Ibrahim Index, and will base their decision on the quality of governance in a wide variety of areas, from the rule of law to economic and social development.
Speaking to AFP at the launch of the prize in October, Ibrahim said that his foundation wanted to "celebrate the guy who managed to take his people out of poverty. That deserves the largest prize in the world.
"Billions of dollars are thrown at African countries. Five million dollars to reward good leaders is peanuts when it comes to matters of life and death."
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan poses in Geneva, following a meeting in which he agreed to chair the committee which will award a US$5 million dollars prize for achievement in African leadership, founded by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.(AFP/Chris Young)
The title made me think of "game show host"...
"Come on down, and pick what's behind Curtain Number Two!"
Please to not give NBC and ABC any ideas for new game shows. ;-)
altho
Spot the DeSpot
or
Bust the Bank
come to mind
This is a joke,right?If Kofi is going to administer the prize then I would expect the payout to suddenly drop to maybe 3 million.Where's the rest of the money,kofi don't know.
It's legit, I agree tho, It sure sounded like an April Fool's gag at first glance.
Is that his middle finger there, on his cheek?
It would fit his attitude towards the world during his tenure as Corruption-General of the U.N.
Lemme guess--Kofi's son (KoKo? DeCaf?) is in the running...?
Sounds like there will be a dearth of candidates, just Mugabe, Amin,.....
Self-aggrandizement award.
The yearly allocation for the prize is actually a little less than a Nobel, but since they'll only end up awarding it once every 10 years or so it'll add up.
Was there ever a more feckless man of position considered a gentleman?
What's next? Robert Mugabe gets the Nobel Prize for population control?
...to absolutely no avail.
So *that's* where all those Nigerian emails are coming from...
Cheers!
His new employers aren't very bright, are they?
I'll bet his expense account is bigger than the prize.
Wow!
Is this akin to a grade three student giving grade one students an award for the best fingerpainting?
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