---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 17:19:55 -0700
From: charlotte utting <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [WASAN] FW: [j2000-grassroots] Bono and O'Neill
----------
From: "Alejandra Tres" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 11:21:39 -0700
To: "International Health" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Fw: [j2000-grassroots] Bono and O'Neill
Rock star tries to entice US Treasury chief into aid band: U2 singer faces
tough job to win over O'Neill, writes Alan Beattie:
Financial Times; May 13, 2002
By ALAN BEATTIE
Irish rock star Bono has recruited some prominent and unlikely comrades to
the cause of more aid and debt relief for the world's poorest countries.
In March when President George W. Bush announced an extra Dollars 5bn
(Pounds 3.4bn) a year in US development aid, the U2 singer was by his side.
This year, Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and world's richest man,
announced a joint effort with Bono to address poverty in Africa. The rock
singer has even won the backing of conservative politicians such as Jesse
Helms.
Now he must reckon with Paul O'Neill. Next week, Bono and the US Treasury
secretary will embark on a 10-day fact-finding tour of Africa. It will be no
easy task to convince the hard-nosed businessman- turned-politician, who is
generally not thought of as a bleeding heart liberal, that aid works.
The US devotes relatively little of its income to aid - even accounting for
the extra Dollars 5bn pledged in March. There could be no greater prize for
campaigners than the support of the world's richest nation.
The pursuit of conservatives is a departure for Bono. His pleas for debt
relief were always effective with populist politicians such as Tony Blair
and Bill Clinton, who are acutely aware of the primal pull of rock music on
younger voters bored with the messy compromises of workaday politics.
These days, however, Bono is tapping into the deeply religious sentiment of
conservative American politics.
Jamie Drummond, another debt relief campaign veteran, says: "There is
something eerily effective about an Irish rock star who can look
conservative American religious politicians in the eye and say: 'The Bible
says we will be judged according to how we treat the poor. I believe that I
will be judged. Do you?'"
Mr Helms, the rightwing Republican senator and Bono's most spectacular
convert, was formerly of the view that aid went down foreign "ratholes". Now
he is calling for Dollars 500m in US aid to be given to African babies with
HIV-Aids.
Bono's calculatedly naive approach is more than a pitch to the conservative
conscience. He also sets out to show that aid works. In preparation for the
media-friendly trip with Mr O'Neill, Bono undertook a scouting mission to
Africa this year with two long-standing allies: Jeffrey Sachs, the
Republican administration's favourite Democratic economist, and Bill Frist,
the Tennessee senator and practising physician, who regularly tours Africa
performing surgery in the bush.
Evidence from that trip, in particular a photograph of a well in Uganda
built with money released by debt relief, has already convinced some
sceptics where truckloads of World Bank reports have failed. Bono and
Senator Frist's first-hand accounts of foreign aid in action delivered to
Republican senators at a retreat this year were enough to win many round,
say those who were present.
A prime example of Bono in action is his wooing of Congressman Sonny
Callahan, former chairman of the House foreign appropriations committee and
another former critic of foreign aid.
Mr Callahan, a conservative Alabama Republican, is a long way from
Clintonite "I-feel-your-pain" liberalism. But he regards Bono as a one-man
accountability operation.
"I believe Bono is truly genuine, and he deserves a medal for his work in
this area," he says. "We depend on his reports, and the early evidence is
that a great majority (of debt relief) is going to its intended purpose."
Mr Callahan is highly unlikely to derive any personal political gain from
association with the U2 singer. Yet he prides himself on being half of what
he calls "the Sonny and Bono show".
Other governments and development charities that have been banging their
heads against the indifference of US politicians to development issues for
years are dumbfounded but delighted.
"Someone once called Bono a Mother Teresa figure, but in fact he is more
like John Wayne," says Bobby Shriver, record producer and member of the
political Kennedy clan, who helped to get Bono his introductions to Capitol
Hill. "He is the lone good guy who rides into town motivated by nothing more
than an ideal. It is a potent American myth."
"Bono goes in with his photograph and says: 'Here is a well built with debt
relief money. It didn't go down a rathole. It went to this waterhole.'
Republicans are far more impressed with an individual they trust than they
are with some long-winded bureaucratic process."
With Mr O'Neill, Bono has his work cut out. The Treasury secretary was
initially sceptical of Bono's motives. Lucy Matthew, another campaigner,
points out that it took more than a one-man show to get him to listen: the
Jubilee USA network of debt relief campaigners deluged the Treasury with
emails and postcards.
During planning for the trip to Ghana, Uganda, South Africa and Ethiopia, Mr
O'Neill asked to see examples of aid failing as well as succeeding. The
Treasury secretary will test Bono's knowledge of the subject as much as his
passion.
Mr O'Neill, whose trenchant view is that much aid has been wasted, is no
pushover. Bono has 10 days to put his charm and commitment to work.
Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-2002
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Take the Yahoo! Groups survey for a chance to win $1,000.
Your opinion is very important to us!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/NOFBfD/uAJEAA/Ey.GAA/DKgolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Next WASAN meeting is Wednesday, May 29, 2002. Location: Douglas Truth Library, 2300 E Yesler Way, Seattle
7:00 PM WASAN business meeting
7:30 PM PROGRAM: Good Read. A free event.
We usually meet the fourth Wednesday of the month. For a calendar of local Africa events see http://www.ibike.org/africamatters/calendar.htm . To post a message: [log in to unmask] To subscribe send a message to [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe send a message to [log in to unmask] . All past postings are archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wa-afr-network
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
