Mo Ibrahim Quotes
We need to keep pressure on our own governments to force more and more transparency.
There were many critics who were concerned that the ITU was trying to regulate the Internet, but no one could be sure as the proceedings and meetings of the ITU are not publicly available. This is a classic UN problem. They see themselves as representing governments and not people. The Governments have the information and so they delude themselves into believing that they are transparent, when the reality is that for the individual they are totally opaque. Most critics who worry about UN regulation of the Internet, are just as concerned with what other countries are proposing than what there own government’s position is. And most governments themselves do not release the actual transcripts or proceedings of the ITC meetings but only documents giving their positions. This is an example of secrecy being promoted as transparency where the UN covers for member nations who want to maintain secrecy.
Mohammed "Mo" Ibrahim is a Sudanese-British billionaire businessman. He worked for several telecommunications companies, before founding Celtel, which when sold had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries. After selling Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, to evaluate nations' performance. He is also a member of the Africa regional advisory board of London Business School.
