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Bono takes O'Neill on tour Africa Financial Times Monday, 20th May 2002 Today, Paul O'Neill, the US Treasury secretary, embarks on a 12-day tour through Aids clinics, rural communities and fledgling small enterprises in some of the world's poorest countries in Africa, accompanied by the rock star Bono. The trip is an attempt to persuade Mr O'Neill that there is a crying need for more development aid, and plenty of places in which it can be spent well without disappearing into bureaucracy, corruption and waste. With an extra $5bn a year in aid already committed by the US administration and earmarked for a "millennium challenge account" - to be directed towards well-performing countries - the battle is already half won. The challenge is to convince Mr O'Neill that the money can be tied to results. He insists he is open to be convinced. "I think there are lots of places in Africa and other places where challenge account money ought to go," he told the FT on the eve of his departure. "Over time - and hopefully not over too much time - it should be possible to demonstrate one can produce meaningful results The tour studiously avoids former US aid favourites like the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Liberia - where millions of dollars was shelled out to murderous but pro-American dictators and not too many questions asked about how it was spent. During the 1990s, such politically-motivated aid declined. One worry is whether, in the aftermath of September 11 and the "war on terror", such strategic considerations could re-emerge. Speaking to the Financial Times on the eve of his departure, Mr O'Neill said that a twin-track approach was possible. "Going forward, it is useful to distinguish as best we can between money flows which are intended for economic development and money flows that are intended for assistance to strategic partners," he says. "I think it is possible and useful to make such distinctions." The reality of what Mr O'Neill will see on the trip remains an open question. Bono told the FT he is frankly concerned that Mr O'Neill will see a sanitised version of Africa. "Personally I am nervous about that," he confesses. "Normally, when we go, we go under the wire. I am worried that the hospitals I have been to where the sisters have to work over open drains will all have been painted red, white and blue." But he insists: "We have a zeal to go beyond the usual parameters of the royal walkabout." In terms of what Mr O'Neill has to offer the Africans, many of whom want trade even more than aid, the timing could be better. The US opened its markets to some African products with the African Growth and Opportunity Act two years ago. But now, in the eyes of many, the Bush administration has just undone some of that good work by supporting a new farm bill with massively increased subsidies to US farmers, further disadvantaging growers in poor countries. Mr O'Neill is aware of such criticism - "It may be a necessary but not particularly useful part of the conversations we will have," he says. Bono was shocked by the farm bill, which he regards as a serious setback. "You can't get up in the pulpit on a Sunday and ask people to put cents and pennies and euros into a Christian collection plate and then turn round and threaten poor peoples livelihoods by subsidising agriculture," he says. But for Bono, such setbacks as the farm bill only show how important trips like this are. "Politics at a certain level is pop - you have to get your record on the radio for people to pay attention," he says. "People don't know that protecting a few jobs in the north means that hundreds of thousands in the south suffer." |
