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Bono talks about African Aid |
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Tuesday, 15 May 2007 |
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 Music News: The world's biggest industrial countries are failing to keep up with
financial promises they made to Africa, U2 frontman Bono said today
(May 15), calling a new progress report "a cold shower" for the Group
of Eight.
G-8 members in 2004-2006 contributed less than half
the amount needed to make good on promises to double Africa aid to $50
billion by 2010, according to a report released by DATA (Debt, AIDS,
Trade, Africa), an advocacy group founded by Bono.
"The G-8 are sleepwalking into a crisis of
credibility. I know the DATA report will feel like a cold shower, but I
hope it will wake us all up," he said. Bono is urging German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, who chairs a G-8 summit in Germany next month, to ensure
that members contribute what they said they would.
The report shows the G-8 increased aid by $2.3 billion but says they
need to increase aid by an additional $3.1 billion to substantially
help the people of Africa.
"These statistics are not just numbers on a page,"
Bono said. "They are people begging for their lives, for two pills a
day, a mother begging to immunize her children, a child begging not to
become a mother at the age of 12."
The DATA report said aid money that does arrive has an effect. "Every
day 1,450 Africans living with AIDS are put on lifesaving drugs," the
organization said, and 20 million African children are going to school
for the first time, thanks in part to debt cancellations and aid
increases.
Still, Bono warns that insufficient increases in aid
could reverse progress already made. DATA says the G-8 must contribute
$7.4 billion this year alone to reach its goal. If Germany makes good
on its promises to help Africa, he said, the other G-8 members will do
the same.
Britain and Japan have contributed most of the aid increase so far, it said.
 Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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