Ann Crotty
Business Report (South Africa)
February 10, 2005

It’s been 20 years since Bob got involved in Africa; 20 years since he managed to cajole the UK and Irish pop industry into rescuing Africa with a big song and then a big concert.

A lot has happened in those 20 years. Almost all of the pop groups involved in Geldof’s Band Aid project have broken up and/or died, with the possible exception of U2. The Spice Girls have come and gone; Boyzone has come and gone.

And possibly the scariest thing to happen to Geldof in the past 20 years – apart from having to visit Africa all the time – was that the original Band Aid song was rereleased in December 2004 Could it be that the West does not realise the full extent of the damage? It’s shockingly bad.

I enjoyed the original version. The lyrics were really dodgy but the music was pleasant in a rousing-uplifting-Christmas-anthem sort of way. And if it didn’t manage to uplift many Africans it did seem to rouse the Europeans at all those earnest, heartfelt concerts in the eighties and every Christmas since.

So a lot has happened in Geldof’s rapid-life-cycle vinyl world.

But 20 years later here we are in Africa and hardly anything seems to have changed – although I personally feel a heck of a lot has happened in this particular part of Africa.

But obviously what is boring Geldof is that the pictures of Africa that dominate the TV and newspapers continue to be the ones of thousands of people starving to death or of youngsters with huge guns strapped across their frail bodies waiting to do the bidding of some warlord. So unchanging is it that Geldof and his fans must suspect the media are constantly rerunning old footage. Rather like remakes of eighties pop songs.

Geldof’s remarks last week reminded me of how years ago when he was about eight my nephew was puzzled as to why his school should be donating their Christmas collections to “Africa.” Africa had received the collections of the previous two or three years and Raymond felt sure that by now just about everyone in Africa must be quite well off. As it happens, Raymond is a pupil at Geldof’s old school in Dublin. So it may not just be a pop star thing, it may be that this Catholic school spreads a belief in big dramatic miracles among its pupils.

But that would only explain Bob and Raymond. What about all the others who are constantly peddling a belief in the big miracle that will save Africa?

As Gerrit Olivier of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Johannesburg wrote in Business Day earlier this week: “In spite of its deficiencies and failures, the ‘big-plan-paradigm’ still remains the dominant approach to Africa’s development.” It has been dominant since the seventies, when the West began its efforts to “fix” post-colonial Africa.

Of course Europe has always had a “big plan” approach to Africa. Colonisation was a really big plan and the fact that it worked so well for Europeans has possibly encouraged them to believe in big plans for Africa.

Could it be that the West does not realise the full extent of the damage that was done in Africa?

Do they believe that societies whose natural institutions were destroyed over a 300-year period and that were cobbled together into artificial nations will easily and quickly strut out on the path to development just as soon as they are directed to it?

The latest big plan, the international finance facility, is essentially a dusting off and dressing up of an old one, which involves writing off debt and providing more aid.

That is certain to rejuvenate the flagging aid industry that supports thousands of overpaid EU, UN and World Bank officials, as well as keeping thousands of corrupt African bureaucrats and politicians in a life of luxury.

Billions of dollars of aid ago Graham Hancock wrote in Lords of Poverty that aid is a waste of time and money and should be stopped.

“After the multibillion-dollar financial flows involved have been shaken through the sieve of overpriced and irrelevant goods that must be bought in the donor countries, filtered again in the deep pockets of hundreds of thousands of foreign experts and aid agency staff, skimmed off by dishonest commission agents, and stolen by corrupt ministers and presidents, there is really very little left to go around.

“This little, furthermore, is then used thoughtlessly, or maliciously, or irresponsibly by those in power – who have no mandate from the poor, who do not consult with them and who are utterly indifferent to their fate.”

Perhaps it’s time for Bob and Bono to stay at home and focus on persuading European farmers of the need to accept a reduction in their subsidised incomes.

They might also add some muscle to Global Witness’s Publish What You Pay campaign, which is an attempt to force companies to disclose their payments to developing countries.

Meanwhile, Africa can focus more of its efforts on building the sort of institutional capacity needed to ensure that a much greater proportion of the population benefits from improved trade opportunities and a much smaller proportion is dependent on aid that never seems to help.

Bob should be warned – it will probably be a slow and boring process with little excitement or drama.