The former president of Botswana won more than US$5 million Monday for his leadership skills, honored for steering the southern African nation through a decade of economic stability and presiding over health care reforms that aggressively tackled the spread of AIDS.
Festus Gontebanye Mogae, who led diamond-rich Botswana from 1998 until this year, won the 2008 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. The prize, in its second year, aims to recognize and promote good governance in Africa.
The foundation that awards the prize was created by Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born billionaire who founded the African telecommunications company Celtel International.
Mogae will receive US$5 million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter. The foundation will also consider granting a further $200,000 annually for 10 years to causes that Mogae supports.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who chairs the prize committee, praised Mogae for his leadership on health and economic issues.
"Botswana demonstrates how a country with natural resources can promote sustainable development with good governance, in a continent where too often mineral wealth has become a curse," Annan said.
An Oxford-educated economist, Mogae privatized parts of the country's economy, notably the airlines and telecommunications industry, as he presided over a decade of stability and economic growth.
Since Botswana is the world's largest producer of diamonds, Mogae worked to ensure that his country benefited from its mineral wealth _ venturing into cutting and polishing diamonds instead of just exporting uncut stones and allowing foreigners to earn most of the profit.
Mogae has also received widespread praise for tackling Botswana's high HIV/AIDS infection rates. While the disease still carries a stigma elsewhere in Africa, Mogae has taken an AIDS test publicly and addressed the issue in almost every one of his speeches.
Today, lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs are known locally as "Mogae's tablets" and the number of children being infected with HIV by their mothers has dropped from as high as about 40 percent to only 4 percent. Anti-AIDS drugs are also reaching most of those who need it.
Earlier this year, Mogae stepped down even before the end of his second term _ the last he is allowed under the constitution. That allowed his vice president, Seretse Ian Khama, son of Botswana first's president Sir Seretse Khama, to run as an incumbent in elections next year.
The smooth transition was notable on a continent where too many leaders use force and fraud to hang onto power for decades. Still, some democracy activists and opposition members in Botswana criticized the move, likening it to automatic succession.
The Ibrahim prize is given to democratically elected former heads of state from sub-Saharan African countries who have left office within the last three years.
Mozambique's former president, Joaquim Chissano, won the prize last year. He ruled Mozambique for 18 years, leading that country out of a devastating civil war.
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