His Excellency Festus Mogae is one of the world’s few winners of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. He trained as an Economist at the Universities of Oxford and Sussex. His Excellency served in Washington, DC, as the Alternate and Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund for Anglophone Africa. He then returned home to take up the position of Governor of the Bank of Botswana, and was Permanent Secretary to the President, Secretary to the Cabinet and Supervisor of Elections. He was appointed Minister of Finance and Development Planning in 1989 and subsequently became Vice President in 1992, until 31 March 1998 when he became the Third President of the Republic of Botswana which tenure ended on 31st March 2008. He was also a Member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Member of the Parliamentarians for Global Action and the Global Coalition for Africa.
His Excellency was Governor for Botswana for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Member of the Joint Development Committee of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the transfer of real resources to developing countries. He was appointed a member of various international organizations. He is currently the Chairman of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission for South Sudan and a member of the United Nations High Level Panel on Access to Medicines. He was also involved in community-based organizations and a range of organizations involved in leadership, governance and the fight against HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
