2010 Medal of Glory Award goes to an African Businessman and the People of Burkina Faso

The 13th Annual MOGA AfrICANDO Gala Dinner is being organized in collaboration with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and will take place on July  21st during the 5th African Agricultural Science week and FARA General Assembly at the Ouga 2000 International Convention Centre, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The Medal of Glory Award (MOGA), for the first time in its thirteen (13) years history, will be bestowed to a nation and its people and a businessman.

President Blaise Compaore, on behalf of the more than15 million people of Burkina Faso, will accept the Medal of Glory Award during this year's AfrICANDO Gala. The People of Burkina Faso, (Burkinabe) are being recognized for their efforts in pursuing agricultural trade, as a tool to advance political, social, cultural and economic development in their country. The people of this West African nation have been relentless in their labors to penetrate regional and international markets through the simple, but effective exporting of fruits and vegetables among other products, to its neighbors, and cotton, globally. 

Burkina Faso exemplifies the plight of a developing country that is constrained by limited access to regional and international markets to grow its economy, and provide a decent standard of living for its people, so that democracy and freedom may thrive. The Burkinabe's have persevered in conducting agriculture trade, notwithstanding restrictive and bias international, and unsupportive regional policies, corruption at border posts and limited transportation linkages between  farms and markets.

Dr. Mo Ibrahim, the founder of Celtel International and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, is an African born electrical and mobile communications engineer. Through Dr. Ibrahim's leadership, Celtel became one of  Africa's most successful telecommunication cellular networks, creating thousands of jobs in sixteen African countries and facilitating  linkages from farms to markets, by using technology to bridge  the communication gap between rural and urban Africa. As Founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation he celebrates
excellence in leadership and good governance through The Ibrahim Prize that rewards good leadership and The Ibrahim Index that ranks governance in Africa.

Accordingly, both the Country of Burkina Faso and this African born businessman resonate AfriCANDO's 2010 theme: Using Trade as a Tool to Advance Agricultural Development throughout Africa.

" With the present deadlock in  the World Trade Organization (WTO), on the issues of subsidies and unfair trading rules, The Foundation for Democracy in Africa calls for: immediate  end to "lavish"  subsidies by US, EU, China and others  to cotton farmers and  removal of other non tariff barriers impeding the  competitive export of African cotton to regional and international markets; The African Union and African governments to fast track the free movement of people, goods and services within  the continent; and congratulates Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, members of  the East Africa Community (EAC) for leading by example by opening their borders for free movement of people, goods and services on July 1, 2010,." states Dr. Gershwin Blyden, Executive Director of the Institute for Democracy in Africa .

This model of innovation, leadership and peoples' ownership and participatory democracy must be replicated throughout the continent of Africa.

The Medal of Glory Award is The Foundation for Democracy in Africa's (FDA) highest honor, awarded, annually to exemplary leaders for extraordinary contributions to economic, social, cultural and agricultural development and democracy in Africa.

Past recipients of the award include President Dr. Bingu WA Mutharika of Malawi; Dr. Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, Director General of the United Nations, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1974 - 1987); Dr. Sarah E. Moten, Chief, Education Division, USAID Africa Bureau; President Mazire of Botswana; President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria; Dr. Dorothy Height, Late President of the National Council of Negro Women, President Alpha Omar Konare of Mali and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.