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November 11, 2007
Curse of the Dilettantes: celebrity interest in MENA (and other) causes
Worthy of a quick reada note on the celebrity aide complex for Africa which as well applies to the MENA fringe, I draw particular attention to this:
Twenty years on, more “fockin’ money” is still the musicians’ basic prescription for Africa. Bono’s crusade centres around foreign aid and debt relief. There are experts who agree with him. Jeffrey Sachs, the stars’ favourite economist, favours an aid-driven approach to African poverty – and, according to Angelina Jolie, he is “one of the smartest people in the world.”But the Sachs-Bono-Jolie prescription for Africa is hardly uncontested. There are experts who believe that aid to Africa is often counter-productive. Even some of those who agree that aid and debt relief are important see them as only a small part of the solution. In a much-praised book on global poverty, The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier argues that many of the problems of Africa are essentially political. He laments the fact that at the G8: “We have had leadership without an adequate agenda, because to date the agenda has been dominated by aid.
As all know, I frankly detest Sachs as an idiot theotician.
Posted by The Lounsbury at November 11, 2007 03:47 PM
Filed Under:
Economics
,
MENA Region General
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