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G8 SUMMIT: The Music Will Have Developmental Echoes

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jul 1 2005 (IPS) - Long after the music dies down at the Live 8 concerts and the crowds go home, echoes will linger by way of questions whether star-studded shows like these are what Africa needs.

The debate is particularly live because host Britain has made the development of Africa a priority for the G8 leaders meeting at Gleneagles in Scotland July 6-8.

Pop music stars and rock bands are gearing up in each of the Group of Eight countries, plus South Africa, for Saturday’s concerts, which are expected to draw more than a million people – plus untold millions more who can take in the music via television, radio or Internet broadcasts.

The crowds around the celebrities are intended to give leaders from the Group of Eight industrialised countries (United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) a resounding message what their own people want for Africa.

But that message still does not engage with the question what Africa wants for itself.

"Anything that raises awareness of poverty in Africa is a good thing, but that is nowhere near enough in itself," Nick Dearden from the independent group War on Want told IPS. "And it is particularly important that Bob Geldof and other celebrities at the concerts do not claim to speak for the developing world."

That sort of thing has happened for too many years now, "and if they start to speak for Africa, that then does not change anything," Dearden said.

And charity is not what Africa needs, he said. "Charity will not solve the problems of Africa," he said. "You need reform of the economic structures that have made charity seem necessary in the first place."

In the 1980s Africa was seen as "a victim that had got itself into a complete mess, but the discourse on Africa has clearly moved forward since then," Dearden said. There is recognition now that "Western political institutions and decision-makers have created Africa’s problems."

They have done this through the economic trading system and debt structures built over the past 30 to 40 years, he said. "And for centuries before that Western governments and corporations have bled Africa dry of its resources, and taken it as a source of slave labour and cheap labour."

Rock star Bob Geldof who is behind Live 8 is anxious to keep charity out of the concerts to be held in many of the G8 countries. Organisers of Live 8 too would now find a purely charitable concert like the Band Aid concert of the 1980s too patronising. But many argue that a lot of Africa still needs the West to open its purse strings to help. Economic and trade reforms are necessary, but Africa is seen as needing simply money and aid as well.

"There are very specific circumstances where Africa needs external aid and support," Gregory Barrow from the World Food Programme (WFP) told IPS. "In Darfur, in northern Uganda, in southern Africa there are genuine needs that national governments cannot meet on their own, and where there is a clear need for aid."

It is not offensive to anyone that Africa should be given aid, Barrow said. "We hope there comes a time in the not too distant future where Africa does not need aid, and the WFP can finish its work and leave, but that situation has not arisen yet."

Banishing hunger must be a large part of making poverty history, the WFP says. "One African in three is malnourished," the WFP said in a statement Friday. "Hunger in Africa, like elsewhere, is both a cause and an effect of poverty."

The WFP aims to feed 26 million victims of food crises in Africa this year because of drought, conflict, HIV/AIDS, locust infestations and economic problems. So far it says it has barely half the contributions towards the billion dollars it needs "to keep these people alive and build better lives."

In seven southern African countries the number of people in need of emergency food aid this year has rapidly risen from 3.5 million to 8.3 million, mainly because of drought, the WFP says. But the United Nations agency has received less than 20 percent of the 405 million dollars that it needs for its regional operation in southern Africa through to the end of 2006.

"Without food assistance, millions of the most vulnerable stand no chance of escaping poverty," the WFP says.

In Ethiopia, 8.3 million people need food and other assistance so far this year, including 3.8 million who need emergency food aid because of poor harvests, degraded land, small land-holdings, high population growth and losses of crops, livestock and other assets, according to WFP.

Africa needs the West to reform trade structures, but the WFP argues it needs also aid. "Immediate assistance for the hungry poor must be combined with long-term development to boost productivity, create employment and increase the value of the assets that poor people own."

But the long-term path also has a price tag. "This twin-track approach would cost an extra 25 billion dollars per year," the WFP says. "Developing countries currently spend 30 billion dollars dealing with the consequences of hunger and malnutrition."

More money has to come from somewhere, and substantially it would have to be the West. Charity may not be such a bad word for Africa after all.