Quote by Mo Ibrahim: “Everything depends on governance. Everything.”

Development, health, education, justice — all of the things that determine whether people live well or badly ultimately depend on how a society is governed. Not on aid, not on natural resources, not on geography. The quality of governance is the root variable from which almost everything else flows, for better or worse.

Ibrahim made this statement around 2010, during the height of the Arab Spring, which would soon reshape North Africa and demonstrate dramatically how governance — and the collapse of it — could determine the fates of entire populations. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation's governance index was becoming an influential tool in African political analysis.

Sudanese-British billionaire businessman and philanthropist who founded the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in 2006 to promote good governance and leadership in Africa. The foundation's Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is the world's largest individual prize. He sold Celtel, his mobile telecommunications company, for 3.4 billion US dollars in 2005.