Africa: Bono is taking his crusade for Africa on the road. He will tour Lesotho, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Mali and Ghana on a 10-day trip starting on Tuesday to examine how his successful campaign for debt relief can now help combat poverty and disease, his advocacy group, Data, said.
The tour comes four years after the U2 lead singer focused the world's attention on Africa's plight when he and then US treasury secretary Paul O'Neill travelled around the continent to highlight the need for western governments to increase aid and erase poor countries' debt burdens.
Bono is credited with spearheading the successful campaign to erase the debts of poor countries, with world leaders praising his effort to learn the issues and be a constructive participant in policy-making.
In June, the Group of Eight industrialised countries, meeting in Gleneagles in Scotland, agreed to cancel the debts of 18 low-income countries, most of them in Africa, to free up resources to tackle poverty. The G-8 powers also pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010 to about $47 billion.
Much has changed since Bono's trip with Mr O'Neill in 2002. The continent is enjoying its best growth rates in more than 30 years, due not only to a boom in global commodity prices, but also to improvements in government economic policies and fewer conflicts. However, critics say years of foreign aid has done little to effectively change the lives of many Africans.
Jamie Drummond, executive director of Data, (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), the advocacy group co-founded by Bono, said the tour will try to gauge if the increased attention on Africa is making a difference for such things as healthcare and education.
"We're going to look at foreign assistance working on the ground in Africa and see what is working and what is not," he said. "Effective aid backing good African leadership can get results, so let's do more of it," said Mr Drummond, adding: "Why would you not do more of it?"
In Washington, the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, in the early stages of crafting fiscal 2007 Bills, has shaved off $2.4 billion from President Bush's request for foreign aid as a way to help with tax cuts. Mr Drummond said such moves would derail the promises made to the world's poor, and Bono's goal was to keep policy-makers' attention on Africa.
The timing of this was extremely important, because the G8 was now considering whether they could keep their promises, he said.
- (Reuters)