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Ireland's Bono Set for African Fact-Finding Trip
Posted on Tuesday, February 26 @ 13:19:29 CET by Macphisto
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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish rock singer Bono will travel to Africa next month on a fact-finding tour as part of his latest drive to secure debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries.
A spokeswoman for U2, the Irish band fronted by the outspoken star, confirmed on Tuesday the trip would go ahead but said details had not yet been finalized.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who shared a platform with Bono at the World Economic Forum in New York earlier this month, is expected to accompany him.
Bono, 41, real name Paul Hewson, has campaigned tirelessly for Drop the Debt -- formerly Jubilee 2000 -- an umbrella organization of development and religious groups dedicated to erasing the public debt of 52 of the world's poorest countries, most of them in Africa.
The group contends that by wiping $350 billion from their books these nations would be free to spend money on healthcare and education rather than servicing loans run up by corrupt and often long-departed governments.
"I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing," Bono told U.S.-based Time Magazine this month.
A veteran of fellow Irishman Bob Geldof's 1985 Live Aid concert, Bono recently set up his own lobbying group called DATA (Debt, Aid, Trade for Africa), with an agenda advocating economic aid, lower export tariffs and money to fight AIDS.
In return, Africa's nations will be expected to provide greater democracy, accountability and government transparency.
One of DATA's funding sources is computer billionaire Bill Gates (news - web sites) who, along with his wife Melinda, has created a fund aimed at bridging the disparity in healthcare between poor and rich countries.
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