*Ally*
New Yorker
thanks for the heads up about the Aaron Brown show! i will definitely be watching that.
here's a good article on what bono and o'neill did yesterday.
******************************************
http://www.ft.com
May 23, 2002
From The Financial Times:
Accentuate the positive
By Alan Beattie in Accra
Published: May 23 2002
As the tour begins to ease its way into a routine, with a long day of joint visits around Accra
and in the poorer north of Ghana, the terms of the debate between Bono and Paul O'Neill
become clearer.
A stale debate between aid-is-good and aid-is-bad has fortunately failed to materialise, and
instead an earnest dialogue evolves on exactly what role aid can play.
Mr O'Neill is still determinedly in ostentatious learning mode, prefacing almost all his remarks
with the caveat that all his conclusions are preliminary. During a visit to a school in Accra, he
signs the visitors' book and under the column "Purpose of visit," writes "To learn." But when
pressed on the detail of what he wants, he returns to his starting point that the best route to
development is for the government to ensure the rule of law, security of contract, and
investment where necessary, and then largely to get out of the way.
Bono, doggedly maintaining the comparison between Ghana and Ireland, is keen to stress
how a huge injection of aid into investment and social spending is necessary to provide the
basis for the entrepreneurship that will bring growth and reduce poverty. Ireland benefited from
such aid in the 1950s and 1960s, he says. Throughout the day, Bono uses each visit gently but
insistently to press the issues that concern him.
The day starts not long after dawn, at one of Accra's markets. Paul O'Neill, whose promise to
spend most of his time talking to local people is being kept, starts bargaining for a jar of
mayonnaise on a stall. "Too much," he says, when told the price. "That's what he always says,"
Bono chips in. "I say: never enough." Bono buys some chilli peppers at well over the going rate,
and goes on to point out that the fruit-sellers at the next stall complain that much of their produce
is stolen during the slow journey from Burkina Faso, a thousand miles to the north, and that this
could be eliminated if a better road was built with aid money.
A visit to a smoked-fish factory gives Bono the chance to point out how much Ghanaian fish has
been hoovered up by big foreign trawlers, driving out local fishermen.
An afternoon trip by military plane to a hospital and village in the poorer north of the country lets
him point out how the liberalisation of the Ghanaian rice industry left it vulnerable to a flood of
cheap imports. Sacks of American rice, piled high in the Accra market seems to bear this out.
Mr O'Neill declines to leap on board this scepticism of free trade, suggesting gently that perhaps
Ghana is not best suited to growing rice.
But Mr O'Neill's openness to discussion certainly earns him the benefit of the doubt from some
hard-to-please protagonists local non-governmental organisations. Meeting him, they bring a
familiar litany of NGO complaints - not enough government consultation, too much trade and
market liberalisation too soon, and arbitrary impositions of policies by the IMF and World Bank -
and get a remarkably sympathetic ear. Mr O'Neill said he would try to get the IMF and World
Bank off our backs," says Bishop Akolgo, deputy director of Isodec, a local NGO, after the meeting.
"We haven't heard this sort of thing from the US Treasury before. Let's hope things actually get
done."
It no doubt helps that also attending the meeting is Ghanaian finance minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo,
who has impressed Mr O'Neill with his plans for boosting economic growth, and who also
happens to agree with the US plan to convert some World Bank lending into grants.
The rest of the day is taken up with visits that undoubtedly show a need for more money, if properly
spent.
The two visit a local school and training centre with hundreds of impeccably smart pupils turning
out in the schoolyard in the steaming heat to greet them.
Bono announces that a small girl has twisted his arm to get him to sing, something he generally
resists unless actually on tour. Memorably, one of the world's biggest rock stars then takes the
microphone in the Accra backstreets in the midday sun and leads the ranks of children in an
impromptu rendition of the U2 hit "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." There is a sudden
scramble among the press pack for cellphones to let relatives back home share the experience,
though to be frank, the pupils few of whom appear to be U2 fans - look a little nonplussed.
In the poor north of the country, they visit a scattered village, set in a stereotypical rural African vista
of thatched mud huts on flat grassland, quite removed from the fizzing urban energy of Accra. Both
Bono and Mr O'Neill are given and gamely don - the local costume of flowing robe and floppy
pointed hat in garish striped fabrics, giving them the air of a pair of rather eccentric wizards. The
local children find this hilarious. "If anyone laughs, no more debt cancellation," Bono says. Mr O'Neill
bravely tries some groundnut fritters prepared by the village women, noting just before ingestion the
similarity to the pretzel that nearly did for President George W. Bush.
More soberly, they tour a crumbling and severely ill-equipped hospital where just 14 doctors are
maintaining 380 beds, serving a population of 1.8m people. Mr O'Neill, ever the CEO, inquires about
the throughput flow of patients and is incredulous that the hospital runs on an annual budget of just
$200,000.
The day ends with a reminder that even US treasury secretaries and rock stars can't make everything
work in Africa: the military plane back to the capital is grounded at the airport, unable to take off for
four hours because of bad weather , until the presidential jet is sent to rescue us.
The divisions between the two remain. But they are at least at the first stage of engaging in specific,
detailed dialogue, and the day shows how Bono's technique of measured needling, accentuating the
positive but politely threatening the negative, works.
"The welcome we have been receiving everywhere, with people jumping up and down and waving,
is a greeting for the US," he says. "If they don't get the help they need today, you can come back in
five years and they will be throwing rocks at the car instead."
here's a good article on what bono and o'neill did yesterday.
******************************************
http://www.ft.com
May 23, 2002
From The Financial Times:
Accentuate the positive
By Alan Beattie in Accra
Published: May 23 2002
As the tour begins to ease its way into a routine, with a long day of joint visits around Accra
and in the poorer north of Ghana, the terms of the debate between Bono and Paul O'Neill
become clearer.
A stale debate between aid-is-good and aid-is-bad has fortunately failed to materialise, and
instead an earnest dialogue evolves on exactly what role aid can play.
Mr O'Neill is still determinedly in ostentatious learning mode, prefacing almost all his remarks
with the caveat that all his conclusions are preliminary. During a visit to a school in Accra, he
signs the visitors' book and under the column "Purpose of visit," writes "To learn." But when
pressed on the detail of what he wants, he returns to his starting point that the best route to
development is for the government to ensure the rule of law, security of contract, and
investment where necessary, and then largely to get out of the way.
Bono, doggedly maintaining the comparison between Ghana and Ireland, is keen to stress
how a huge injection of aid into investment and social spending is necessary to provide the
basis for the entrepreneurship that will bring growth and reduce poverty. Ireland benefited from
such aid in the 1950s and 1960s, he says. Throughout the day, Bono uses each visit gently but
insistently to press the issues that concern him.
The day starts not long after dawn, at one of Accra's markets. Paul O'Neill, whose promise to
spend most of his time talking to local people is being kept, starts bargaining for a jar of
mayonnaise on a stall. "Too much," he says, when told the price. "That's what he always says,"
Bono chips in. "I say: never enough." Bono buys some chilli peppers at well over the going rate,
and goes on to point out that the fruit-sellers at the next stall complain that much of their produce
is stolen during the slow journey from Burkina Faso, a thousand miles to the north, and that this
could be eliminated if a better road was built with aid money.
A visit to a smoked-fish factory gives Bono the chance to point out how much Ghanaian fish has
been hoovered up by big foreign trawlers, driving out local fishermen.
An afternoon trip by military plane to a hospital and village in the poorer north of the country lets
him point out how the liberalisation of the Ghanaian rice industry left it vulnerable to a flood of
cheap imports. Sacks of American rice, piled high in the Accra market seems to bear this out.
Mr O'Neill declines to leap on board this scepticism of free trade, suggesting gently that perhaps
Ghana is not best suited to growing rice.
But Mr O'Neill's openness to discussion certainly earns him the benefit of the doubt from some
hard-to-please protagonists local non-governmental organisations. Meeting him, they bring a
familiar litany of NGO complaints - not enough government consultation, too much trade and
market liberalisation too soon, and arbitrary impositions of policies by the IMF and World Bank -
and get a remarkably sympathetic ear. Mr O'Neill said he would try to get the IMF and World
Bank off our backs," says Bishop Akolgo, deputy director of Isodec, a local NGO, after the meeting.
"We haven't heard this sort of thing from the US Treasury before. Let's hope things actually get
done."
It no doubt helps that also attending the meeting is Ghanaian finance minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo,
who has impressed Mr O'Neill with his plans for boosting economic growth, and who also
happens to agree with the US plan to convert some World Bank lending into grants.
The rest of the day is taken up with visits that undoubtedly show a need for more money, if properly
spent.
The two visit a local school and training centre with hundreds of impeccably smart pupils turning
out in the schoolyard in the steaming heat to greet them.
Bono announces that a small girl has twisted his arm to get him to sing, something he generally
resists unless actually on tour. Memorably, one of the world's biggest rock stars then takes the
microphone in the Accra backstreets in the midday sun and leads the ranks of children in an
impromptu rendition of the U2 hit "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." There is a sudden
scramble among the press pack for cellphones to let relatives back home share the experience,
though to be frank, the pupils few of whom appear to be U2 fans - look a little nonplussed.
In the poor north of the country, they visit a scattered village, set in a stereotypical rural African vista
of thatched mud huts on flat grassland, quite removed from the fizzing urban energy of Accra. Both
Bono and Mr O'Neill are given and gamely don - the local costume of flowing robe and floppy
pointed hat in garish striped fabrics, giving them the air of a pair of rather eccentric wizards. The
local children find this hilarious. "If anyone laughs, no more debt cancellation," Bono says. Mr O'Neill
bravely tries some groundnut fritters prepared by the village women, noting just before ingestion the
similarity to the pretzel that nearly did for President George W. Bush.
More soberly, they tour a crumbling and severely ill-equipped hospital where just 14 doctors are
maintaining 380 beds, serving a population of 1.8m people. Mr O'Neill, ever the CEO, inquires about
the throughput flow of patients and is incredulous that the hospital runs on an annual budget of just
$200,000.
The day ends with a reminder that even US treasury secretaries and rock stars can't make everything
work in Africa: the military plane back to the capital is grounded at the airport, unable to take off for
four hours because of bad weather , until the presidential jet is sent to rescue us.
The divisions between the two remain. But they are at least at the first stage of engaging in specific,
detailed dialogue, and the day shows how Bono's technique of measured needling, accentuating the
positive but politely threatening the negative, works.
"The welcome we have been receiving everywhere, with people jumping up and down and waving,
is a greeting for the US," he says. "If they don't get the help they need today, you can come back in
five years and they will be throwing rocks at the car instead."
