No Winners For This Year's African Governance Prize

Successful Sudanese entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim has $5 million that he'd really like to give away. There's just one problem, though: He can't find any recipients for his money.

Yesterday, for the second year running, Ibrahim's foundation decided not to award the Ibrahim Prize for excellence in African leadership. Unfortunately, as explained by the seven-member award committee — led by former UN head Kofi Annan — there weren't any persuasive contenders for the prize.

In order to qualify for the Ibrahim Prize, a candidate has to be a democratically elected, former executive head of an African state who didn't overstay his or her constitutional term limit, and has left office within the last three years. (Previous $5 million prize winners have included former Festus Gontebanye Mogae — who worked to lower Botswana's HIV infection rate as president — as well as former South African President Nelson Mandela, who was named an honorary laureate in 2007.)

This year's news may be disappointing. But according to Ibrahim's foundation, "Whether there is a winner or not," the prize's purpose is to "challenge those in Africa and across the world to debate what constitutes excellence in leadership.

Be as that may, at this point, Ibrahim (pictured above) is hedging his bets — and starting a new program, the "Ibrahim Leadership Fellowship," with the goal of training Ibrahim Prize-worthy leaders from the ground up.

According to his foundation, the fellowships will work with "highly qualified and talented professionals" who want to "improve the prospects of the people of Africa." More details should be forthcoming this November, and the first class of fellows is expected to launch next year.

Meanwhile, as the U.K.'s Sunday Times opines, the lack of an Ibrahim winner for the second year running should spur the West to reconsider elements of its traditional aid model, in which grants are disbursed directly to governments (as well as endless good governance schemes). As the Times says, other actors — notably the Chinese — are pursuing a different model with a greater emphasis on trade and investment, which in turn "offer much greater opportunities for lasting economic growth."

If the lack of an Ibrahim winner this year is embarrassing, though, the fact that one other prize this year won't be handed out — this one with the UN's name attached — is actually good news. Today, UNESCO announced that after months of intense pressure, the agency has decided to "delay" (though not cancel) the prize it intended to award on behalf of Equatorial Guinean dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema. So, not all bad news this week in the annals of African governance and global prizes.

Photo Credit: World Economic Forum