Namibia: President Is Awarded $5 Million Prize for Good Governance

Namibia’s departing president, Hifikepunye Pohamba, has been awarded the 2014 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. In making the announcement on Monday in Kenya, the prize committee’s chairman, Salim Ahmed Salim, said, “President Pohamba’s focus on forging national cohesion and reconciliation at a new stage of Namibia’s consolidation of democracy and social and economic development impressed the prize committee.” The Ibrahim Prize, the largest annually awarded prize in the world, is worth $5 million over the first 10 years, followed by a stipend of at least $200,000 a year. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, established in 2006 by a Sudanese-British telecom mogul, makes the annual awards. Mr. Pohamba, 79, has served two terms as president and is due to hand over power at the end of the month. He was a founding member of the governing party, Swapo, which fought for Namibian independence from South Africa in 1990. Since the prize’s inception, four former presidents have received it. In the past two years, no prize was awarded.

-NY TIMES